We Always Did Have the Worst Timing
by Cythieus
Summary: A twenty three year old Star prepares for her wedding to Marco only to find that her fiancé has vanished from all existence. A sixteen year old Star discovers that Marco is missing from a coveted photo of them. With the remaining Marco in tow, the two iterations of Star go back to the 1990s to figure out what has happened between Angie and Rafael Diaz to make him not exist.
1. The Freshmen

"I think Earth is a pret-ty great place. That's saying something, 'cause I've been though outer-space. I think it suits me; it's just my style. I think I'm going to stay a little whi-le." Star's out of tune singing drowned out the hiss of the shower water. Her fingers moved through her strands of hair and over her scalp to the tune of her little song.

Star still couldn't help but sing when she was truly happy. She still believed that skipping was a better way to get somewhere than just walking. And, despite it being her twenty-third-birthday-slash-wedding-day, she still believed it was better to be a little late than to miss out on potential fun. Anyone that really knew her had come to expect these things after all these years.

The door to the bathroom opened and the trashcan clattered against the wall as someone slipped through the narrow gap.

"Marco?"

"Polo." Marco answered.

"What do you think you're doing? Get the heck out of here," Star said with her face poking out of a little slit between the tile wall and the shower curtain. Her blonde hair was darkened with water still slightly soapy, she pushed a bit of it aside. "You aren't supposed to see me before the wedding!"

She noticed just before he explained, but she knew what he was going to say next. "It's okay," Marco said. "I'm covering my eyes. I didn't see you or the dress."

"Oh," Star smiled devilishly. "In that case," she reached out and grabbed him by the arm, tugging him toward the tub.

Marco wasn't dressed, he was in shorts and a white t-shirt with black socks. These were all things he could afford to change out of easily.

"Watch your step," Star said as Marco's leg bumped the side of the bathtub.

"What are you doing. Star! Star, my socks are wet!" Marco shouted.

Star pressed her body to his, her wet form pushing against his t-shirt as the water from the shower washed over them. "Shhh." She pressed her finger to Marco's lips. "You're going to get us caught. Keep your eyes closed," she ordered him."

"Huh? Oh!" Marco muttered into Star's mouth as her lips pressed to his.

"I love you so much, Marco Diaz."

"I love you too, Star Butterfly."

When Marco went to kiss her again, she twirled away. Blindly, he felt for Star, catching her around the waist and pulling her into his arms. A few years back he'd hit as growth spurt; Star loved the way her head fit comfortably under his chin. His chin rested atop her damp hair, his stubble pulling at the odd strand as she wiggled to get free.

"What are you going to do with me?" Star asked with an exaggerated gasp. "We only have a few hours before we need to get back to Mewni for the ceremony and we still need to get ready and go over any last minute things."

Marco's muscular hand clutched her thigh, his fingers trailing up and down her leg as he moved. "I have a few ideas. Won't need much time for any of them." He kissed the side of her neck. "Won't need much time either."

Then there was nothing. No warmth behind her. His hands had been gripping her leg and wrist, but they were gone. She could still feel the tension where his fingers had been.

"Marco?" Star said.

He was just gone.

"Very funny. Get Star all revved up like a _dragon cycle_ and then leave her high and dry. You know how I get when I'm—" She pulled her fists down her hair in an effort to wring it out. The shower was empty behind her. Star peeked out from behind the curtain to see the door still closed, but Marco wasn't anywhere in the restroom though.

"Marco?" Star stepped over the side of the tub and reached for a towel to wrap around herself. "Come on, this really isn't funny."

Star opened the door to step out as she tucked the excess of the towel into down in the front to keep it held in place. "Alright, you better not look. You know if Angie or Mom find out that you saw me—oh-ho-ho-boy. Marco?"

Something in her chest sank. _He isn't this sneaky or well coordinated. Where could he have gone?_

Star's hands began to glow green. She closed her eyes and raised her arms above her head. "I summon the All-Seeing Eye to tear a hole into the sky. Reveal to me that which is hidden. Unveil to me what is forbidden," she said.

A fine crease formed in the fabric of reality, just in front of her. It widened into a hole revealing an expansive void.

It was blank. Showing her nothing.

"Show me Marco." Star swept her hand across in front of her face to move through vision after vision of empty blackness. "No, show him to me." Her fists tightened until her nails dug little crescent dimples in her palms.

No matter how many times she changed the image there was no sign of Marco or where he had gone. She dressed quickly, not nothing to dry her hair. As she was slipping into a pair of tennis shoes there was a knock at the door.

"Marco?" She asked.

"Wh-Star, it's me." Her mother, Moon Butterfly, was outside of the door. She could tell by the way her voice was muffled that she was leaning close and speaking quietly.

"Did you pass Marco on the way in here?"

There was another pause. "Who? Star, the guests will be arriving in a matter of hours. Tom is at the palace already. I'll never understand why you insist on slumming it on Earth like this…"

Star yanked the door open. "What do you mean 'who?' Marco-Marco! The love of my life, Marco Diaz!"

Moon's cornflower blue eyes glazed over as she stared at her daughter. The former Queen was wearing an ornate lavender dress that hung elegantly off of her shoulders. Her crown had been long since replaced with a small, tasteful circlet, though Star still expected it to be there when she looked up. Moon stepped into the room, pressing her palm to Star's forehead.

"I'm not sick." Star swatted her hand away. "I'm…pissed that you're asking me who your future son-in-law is."

"Oh, dear. You're under too much stress; I knew we were rushing this wedding too much." Moon stomped her foot. "—did you open a spying portal in the bathroom?" The sight of the hole in the hanging in the air caught Moon's eye.

"I opened that to find Marco," Star said, the anger brimming just beneath her words. She let out a sigh and moved to sit on the edge of the tub, her legs poking out of the bottom of the towel that was wrapped around her body. "Look, Mom, Marco came to see me before the wedding, even though it's not allowed. We were…just fooling around a bit in the shower and then he was gone."

Moon writhed her hands together. "Star, I don't think—"

"What? That it's alright for me to see him before the wedding?"

"A marriage vow is a serious thing, Star. They're the trust that love and alliances are built upon. I'm always here for you and I will always be here for you, but this sounds like the kind of thing that you should discuss with Tom. I just hope that he will take what sounds like your brief infidelity as a momentary lapse in judgment."

Star's mouth fell open. "I'm not marrying Tom Lucitor, Mom. How can you just forget Marco?"

"Sweetie, I've never heard of this Marco—what did you say it was again—Diaz. I don't know who he is."

Curling her hand in the air next to her face, Star muttered a spell to dress herself in teal sundress and some red flats. "That's not possible. I'm going to go to Angie and Rafael's. Maybe I'll find Marco there." With a flash of golden light, Star changed into her Mewberty form. A portal to the Diaz Household opened at her side.

"Where are you going?"

"I just told you. I'm going to figure this out," said Star.

* * *

A sixteen year old Star Butterfly flattened the photo against the desk in Eclipsa's study, pulling the lamp so that the light centered on it. The picture was of Star standing off to the far right holding a multicolored beachball. Her blonde hair is pulled up into a ponytail with a red tie holding it in place.

"That's a wonderful picture of you, love," Eclipsa said.

"Look closer!" Star growled.

"What am I looking for?"

"What's missing from this picture?" Star asked.

A frigid wind swept through the open window; Eclipsa drew her robes up around herself and brushed a damp tendril of forest green hair away from her eyes. "It appears to be off center. Who took this?"

"Marco is supposed to be there!" Star said pointing to the vacant space on the left.

"Marco?" Eclipsa said. "Who—wait, how could I forget _Marco_?" Eclipsa's eyes went wide.

"What does it mean?" Star asked.

"Where is Marco now?"

"In bed."

Eclipsa rose from her chair and paced in a small circle. "Yes, he should be, but when did you last check on him?"

"I came straight here."

"When was this picture taken?"

"Last year, but this was given to me before we took it by Father Time," Star said.

"Quite troubling," Eclipsa said. "You're going to be needing the wand and Marco."

"Why would I need to borrow the wand?"

"Let me grab it from my bedchambers. Without it there's no chance you'll make it back."

"Back from where," Star asked as she gathered the picture up and headed for the door.

Star bolted out of the study, grabbing the doorframe to swing herself out into the hall. The sound of her bare feet pounding at the stone floors of the Monster Temple echoed through the corridor. When she reached the stairs she took them two at a time up toward Marco's room, using a spell to propel herself over the last several risers and onto the landing. She kicked the door to Marco's room wide open.

"Are you decent," she shouted out of sheer force of habit. "It doesn't matter, get up."

"Star?" Marco scooted his back up against the headboard, pulling the covers over his bare chest. His eyes were red with exhaustion and his hair was even more of a haphazard mess than normal. "What's the matter?"

She lunged up onto his bed, hugging him tight. "You're okay."

Marco hugged her back, his words were slurred as he replied. "Yeah. I'm always okay. I'm here." His fingers caressed her hair tenderly, he was too drunk with sleep to care and she didn't mind in her current state of panic.

"I've got the wand. In some ways I still think of it as yours as much as it's mine—" Eclipsa's words were cut short and something clattered to the floor out of her hands. "Star, look!"

Star pulled freed herself from Marco's hug, grabbing him at the shoulders. Part of Marco's arms were granulating away like ash in the wind. One was down to the wrist while the other arm was completely gone up to the shoulder.

"Marco!"

"What's happening to me?" His voice was weak and distant. He sank against Star, resting his head on her chest. The weight of him, which she knew too well, felt shallow. He was cold, almost like he was tightly packed fog in human form.

"Eclipsa what is this?" Star yelled.

"Oh bother, give me a second," Eclipsa muttered.

"We don't have a second!" Star yelled. Marco was shaking in her arms, she could feel his body passing into her.

Eclipsa took a deep breath, holding the wand up. "Time isn't a stream that flows in a single direction, it's like pond. It all exists in one plane. If a whirlpool disrupts the water, the epicenter is the safest place to be."

"What?" Star yelled, turning to look at Eclipsa as tears welled up in the bottom of her eyes.

"You've only got the one chance. For Marco's sake, catch!" Eclipsa gave the wand an underhand toss and Star snatched it out of the air. The second her skin made contact with the wand a blinding light surrounded it. It glowed white and warm, shortening into the form she had carried it as last. The end was a round crystalline field with a complete yellow star as its core. A small heart marked the space that attached the hilt to the top. She hugged it and the photo to Marco's side, trying to will him to stay.

Eclipsa pressed her finger tips together, closed her eyes, and concentrated. "Darkness beyond the twilight. Crimson beyond the blood of my foes. Buried in the stream of time is where your power grows. By my hand, guide this spear to the center of our temporal woes!"

Black tentacles spread from all around Eclipsa like a shadow forking out and reaching to the farthest corners of the room. when she opened her eyes they were oiled over with what looked like stars and galaxies floating across their surface.

"VOID PIERCING SPEAR!" Eclipsa bellowed so loud that the stones of the keep shuddered. A brilliant red spear appeared jutting out of the ground at her side, she hefted it in one hand and threw it straight into Star.

Star screamed, but as it hit her she only felt force and a warmth. It passed right into her and into Marco, sticking through both of them. "What?"

"It'll lead you to the cause of this," Eclipsa's lips weren't moving now and her eyes were still black. Her words came from everywhere at once and there were other voices intertwined with hers, inhuman voices that spoke in tongues that hurt Star's head.

Marco was armless, most of his chest had vanished too and his eyelids flickered up and down. He didn't have long now; tears streamed down star's face.

"Hold him tight," Eclipsa's voice thundered around them. A moment later Eclipsa clapped her hands together sending an explosive wave through the room.

_BAMF! _

Star and Marco were outside in a flash of light, their bodies pressed together on the damp, itchy grass. Marco's head rested in her lap and it was solid again. He was all there. Star pulled him up into her arms, squeezing him tight. His skin stuck to her hands and pressed his warmth into her shirt.

"Star? What's going on?" Marco asked, his voice muffled against her chest.

"You're really okay, you're—"

"You're choking me," Marco managed.

"Sorry."

"Where are we?" Marco asked.

"I don't know. Eclipsa sent us here fix what was wrong with you."

"But where is here?"

"The epicenter—I think," Star said getting to her feet and reaching down to help Marco up. "Earth?"

Marco's room had been so bright with the glow of the spells that it took time for her eyes to adjust. They were on the corner of a lot next to houses and well out of reach of the nearest street lamp. A car drove past one block up and it immediately looked wrong to her.

The car was blocky with flat edges. Music wafted through the air from somewhere just far enough away that she had to really listen for it . Earth music wasn't Star's specialty. The bands she knew were more or less the ones that Marco had shown her, but something about this song sounded different than the things she had heard in her time in Echo Creek.

"And she a punk who rarely ever took advice "Now I'm guilt stricken, Sobbing with my head on the floor…"

There was something decidedly familiar about this place. The signs were too far away to be seen at night, but she;'d been here so many times it didn't matter. "This is Callahan," she said.

"Yeah, you're right," Marco said, "But isn't there supposed to be a gas station there?"

The heart-shaped Mewman marks on her cheeks glowed with panic just as she clasped her hands to her face. "Oh no. Marco, the song, does anything about the song strike you as odd."

Tilting his head to the side, it seemed as if Marco only noticed the music ass she mentioned it, but he listened intently.

"I can't be held responsible "'Cause she was touching her face "And I won't be held responsible "She fell in love in the first place "For the life of me I cannot remember "What made us think that we were wise and "We'd never compromise "For the life of me I cannot believe "We'd ever die for these sins "We were merely freshmen"

"Mom loves this song. She always talks about how it used to make her sad…" Marco said.

"Is it something you hear randomly on the radio?" Star asked.

Marco glanced around. "She usually just plays it from her phone. It's pretty old," Marco said. "Star, it's cold out here and I'm kind of half naked," Marco said suddenly very aware of his nipples. He tried to cover them with his hands. "Please tell me you grabbed my scissors or at least my hoodie."

"You don't remember?" Star asked.

"Remember what?"

"Fading away. I had to get you out of there or you'd be…" Star sank onto her knees in the grass, covering her eyes with her hands. "Marco, you were barely there. Eclipsa didn't seem to know you at first and the picture of us at the beach—" she held it up to show him.

Marco studied it. "Where am I?"

"Exactly. You used to be on the left holding that ball with me, now you're gone."

He slapped his hands to the sides of his head, grasping at his hair. "What the heck, man, what did you do to me?"

"I didn't do anything." Star said socking him in the stomach with her fist. "It was just randomly happened. By the time Eclipsa tried to help whatever had done this was already taking you with it."

"What did she say it was?"

"She just said that the spell she did would take us to the source. I think she sent us back in time," Star explained.

"How do we get back?" Asked Marco.

Star looked down at the wand in her hands. The wand she had once thought of as her birthright. The wand she had given away. Even if she had the kind of juice that Eclipsa did that spell seemed pretty one directional. It had exactly the use Eclipsa had cast it for. Star didn't know any time travel spells and without scissors they couldn't piggyback onto a dimension with faster moving time to ride back to their present.

Her heart thundered in her chest and she gripped the shaft of the wand tight in her hand. _All this magic and just useless._ "I don't think we can," she said.

* * *

_BAMF! _

The force of the spell sucked the breath right out of Eclipsa's lungs. She dropped onto her hands and knees in a small mound of Marco's dirty clothes, drinking in the cold night air.

Her mind raced through all of the places that someone could have gotten hold of that spell. The book was gone. It would take someone with her skill or Glossaryck to recreate the book and they would still need to find a piece of it. Even if they had it the amount of power one would have to use to time travel…there'd be some trace of it. And she would recognize the sign.

After all, it was her spell. One of her more direct but simple works. People saw her as the dark one, the evil one, but it was a rather simple solution to a problem that she had never had to solve. You wouldn't need to kill someone if they never existed. For all of the complicated things that have to fall into place for any one event to take place she tried to find a way to disrupt that, to make time work in her favor. The further back that you went the harder it would be for someone to correct what you did in the present and if you erased a whole person, well then…_poof._

Of course that was the danger. A person is an important lynchpin in the universe, even the more mundane ones. Plucking someone out of time had been one of her better inventions, but it had been one of the more dangerous ones. She hadn't had time to tell Star, not that the girl needed to be under even more pressure.

Marco Diaz stopped being a normal human the moment that he became entangled in Star's strand of fate. A world where Marco Diaz suddenly ceased being across all of space time could be catastrophic.

Embarrassingly, though she wouldn't admit it even if pressed with a Truth Box, a small part of her welled with pride that her spell had worked. It wasn't just some theoretical thing noted down in a book. It was a living spell-work. Though that portion was outweighed by the brimming anger. Someone had stolen from her and her family and cast a spell that threatened her child and husband and Star.

Eclipsa had felt the pain Star's stare. The girl cared for Marco in a way that Eclipsa was sure that her young heart didn't understand. Star had obliterated Toffee if what Moon had told her was true. She hoped in the deepest part of her heart that Star did the same with this thief.


	2. Changes

She didn't remember the walls of this garage being so bare; the pressed lumber that made up the sides of the garage were unfinished and unpainted. The air smelled thick with the musk of wood. Something was different about the light too. It was whiter.

Star had been here three days prior going over some last minute things with Rafael and Angie. Sure, the light bulb could have been changed, but the whole fixture was different. A long florescent bulb buzzed overhead. The cars weren't inside, which was unusual. There were huge cardboard boxes with water-stained bottoms stacked up where one of the cars would have been and in the place of the other there was just a flattened mat with an oil stain in the middle of it.

Star moved toward the door that led into the interior of the house. Using her portals to get into the garage was a force of habit. Catching Marco's parents in a compromising position the one time was enough for Star.

"Angie? Rafael? Are you decent?" Star cracked the door and spoke through it, waiting for the answer before the entered the home.

"Are you there?" Star asked.

There was an oblong oval of a kitchen table just across the counter and bar. The refrigerator was boxy and silver with a small touchscreen panel on it next to an ice and water-maker. The floor was shimmering white tile instead of the baby blue and eggshell that it had been. Star flicked the light switch on; she had to make sure she was seeing all of this correctly.

"Diazes?" she yelled.

Thunderous footfalls rocked the walls and as a svelte man with dark skin stepped into view on the stairs. It was then that the picture became clear to Star. None of the artwork the Diazes had was there. She could see the couch was black leather now and the coffee table was glass topped.

"What the hell are you doing in my house?" The man was holding some kind of sports club. Star couldn't tell which one of the Earth sports it belonged to. He lowered the makeshift weapon as his dark eyes searching her face. "What's the matter?" He asked.

"Sorry—the Diazes—I'm," Star felt the muscles in her face tighten, she rubbed the back of her hand beneath her eye and tried to fight what she knew was coming. "I'm looking for my fiancé. His family is supposed to live here."

"What's your name?"

"Star Butterfly."

"Okay, Star, well my name is Tony and I've lived here for about ten years. I don't know any Diaz family."

Star shook her head. "This is all wrong," she said. She buried her face in her hands and dropped onto the couch. Too late. No point in fighting now. Tears stung their way out of the bottoms of her eyes. Her chest clenched.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's going on?" Tony moved down the stairs, dropping the club against the wall.

"I can't do this. I can't—people think I'm crazy. I was in this house three days ago," Star said pointing to the floor. "I lived in this house for nearly a year. I didn't imagine it. I didn't! I didn't! I want Marco back!"

He hugged her around the shoulders. "Star? I hope its okay if I give you a hug? I don't think you're crazy, but you look like you could use a hug."

Star nodded, shutting her eyes and crying against his shoulder. Her tears soaked into his tank top wetting her face and there was something else. He smelled like the soap Marco used, it was such a visceral familiarity that she knew she couldn't be crazy. She couldn't.

"Sorry," Star managed, sniffling to clear her nose.

"It's okay. Sorry, I came in all ready to be quick with the hands. I thought you were busting in here to steal all my shit."

Star sat back, chuckling to herself despite the pain in her chest. "No. I used a portal to get into your garage and…" she realized what she had said as soon as it left her lips. "I mean…"

"Huh?" Tony asked.

"Never mind," Star said, putting her hands on her knees. "Heeeeeey, have you always lived in Echo Creek?" She asked.

"Born and raised. I get the feeling you're not from around here," he said wide eyed.

Star scratched her head. "Yeah, I'm kind of a foreign exchange student. Or I was. Can I ask you a hypothetical question?"

"Go ahead," Tony said.

"Let's say that you were about to marry a sexy and sort of rambunctious girl who and on your wedding day you kind of snuck into to see her getting ready and you hugged her and then you were just gone. It was like no one even knew you existed. And sexy girl's mother didn't remember you and the house where you grew up wasn't yours. It was all different. Where would you have gone? What would that mean?"

Tony leaned away from her, resting against the arm of the couch. "This doesn't sound so hypothetical."

"Come on Tony, you did thought experiments in your fancy Earth schools, just work the problem," Star said.

"Okay. Damn," Tony paused for a moment. "Like did you ever see Fight Club?"

"Is that like the thing where the two guys wearing swim trunks punch each other?"

"No. I think you're talking about boxing. You ever seen the Sixth Sense?" He asked.

"There are only five senses. Everyone knows that."

"These are movies. Okay, so there's these stories where one person has a friend and they're inseparable. Later in the story they realize that the person wasn't real. They imagined them all along. Or they were a ghost," Tony explained.

Star dismissively swatted her hand at him as if to knock the idea out of the air. "I've dealt with ghosts. Marco was very alive."

Tony put a hand to his chin, running his fingers along his square jaw. "You said it earlier—what if he never existed? Like, what if this is the kind of thing where they've been erased from time or wished not to exist anymore." He paused glancing around. "I might be getting too up my own ass with your experiment," he added.

Star shook her head. "No, no I didn't see it before. I know what this is!"

"You do?" Tony asked.

Star lunged on him, hugging him around the shoulders. "Thank you. I won't forget this!"

"Good luck with your wedding," Tony said. Star was off the couch running and right out the front door, but he followed after her. By the time that he reached the porch there was no sign she had ever been there.

* * *

The Diaz Household was completely vacant. The decorative yard cacti and the little flourishes that made the place stand out were absent and in their place was a lone FOR SALE sign.

"What's going on here?" Marco asked.

He still didn't see it. "The old song on that radio, the missing gas station and how weird everything looks and now this, Marco we went back in time!" Star said throwing her arms up.

Marco jiggled the front door frantically. "No. No. No. No. No. NO!" He yanked his hands away from the knob to turn toward Star. "I can't do this time travel shit again, Star. Not today."

"I don't think we have a choice, potty mouth." Star's words were muffled by her pressing her face to the kitchen window. She used her wand to shine a light inside. "There's not much furniture in there."

"There's a for sale sign out front and the place looks deserted," Marco sighed. "I guess we can stay here."

Star glared over at him, her blonde hair flashing in the moonlight. "You okay, Marco?"

Marco stared her down, his expression going flat. "Help me with the lock."

A grimace washed over Star's face as she trotted toward the front door. "Don't even say please or anything. I'm not your—locksmith," Star said as she touched the wand to the door causing it to unlock and pop open.

"Aww, but you're so good at it."

"Don't get persnickety with me, Diaz, we need to figure out what's going on with you. Something Eclipsa said kinda made me think we might not have forever," Star said.

"I should have never gotten you that word of the day calendar. You're even using it wrong," he smiled. "Look, we won't be able to do anything in the middle of the night like this. Plus we need to get at least some rest."

The interior was mostly the same, the tile on the floor was different, vacant walls. The previous occupant had left the fridge behind, but that was it in the way of usable amenities. Star froze, folding her arms to think for a moment.

"I should be able to bring some stuff here. The spell that I use to clean up is an extra dimensional space. There's some spare furniture in there, some of your clothes. It might be enough to get us by," Star said.

"You've got my underwear in an extra dimensional space?" Marco said.

"If you didn't leave them laying around I wouldn't." Star walked the first floor of the house dropping things where she thought they should be. Though she had been in the Diaz Household many times her talents as a decorator were lightyears ahead of what humans thought was en vogue. Kitchen washer drier. A living dining area, couch and a full sized-table, a coffee table was a waste. She dropped a few more items out of the ether before grabbing Marco's hand and leading him upstairs.

In his room she conjured a bed and a few other things he might need. During all of this Star was quiet, Marco probably thought she was tired.

"Okay, so in the morning we hit the town and try and figure out when we are and what's going on. We should probably check the school first."

"Yeah, that's a great idea, Marco."

Star cast the Sparkle Glitter Bomb Expand spell for her room, bringing the huge tower into existence on the side of the house. The more she thought about it the more she was worried that it might not be safe. This wasn't the Diaz Household from what she could tell. What if the person who was selling it showed up? She undid it and went to the master bedroom.

"Sorry Angie and Rafael. I hope you don't mind me being in here," she said quietly. "I also hope Marco doesn't mind."

She locked the room door and plopped down in the corner, her back resting on the spot where two walls intersected. She pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them tight as she rocked the wand side to side, moving its head in a tight figure eight.

"I summon the All-Seeing Eye to tear a hole into the sky. Reveal to me that which is hidden. Unveil to me what is forbidden," she whispered.

Her heart skipped a beat when Marco appeared lying in his bed, just a few doors away. The way he was supposed to be. His eyes were closed and he was half uncovered with his mouth agape.

He had been peacefully sleeping when this all started. Would he even feel like he was fading away if it happened again? Would he just cease to be? Would she even remember him? She maintained her watch, making an oath to herself all over again that she would save him. Sleep would have to wait. Sleep was a luxury that she couldn't afford.

* * *

Eclipsa zipped Meteroa into her tiny light blue dress, smiling down at her daughter as she ran her fingers through the young girl's violet hair. "You look simply amazing.

"Thanks momma," Meteroa said holding her arms up. The flower basket it hung awkwardly from one side. "When do we get to see Star?"

"You're going to be right in front of her. You've got a very important job. Like I've told you all of Mewni is going to stand up when you come through with your flowers and kernels of corn. And when you toss them out they'll all know Star is right behind you," Eclipsa said.

"Why are you crying, Mommy?" Meteroa asked.

"It's nothing, Sweetie, I'm o—"

There was a crash outside the door and a muffled scream followed by a sound like a spell being cast. Eclipsa pushed Meteora behind her. "Hide somewhere, now. Do as I say."

The wood of the doors splintered, but the pieces froze midair giving Star just enough space to float into the dressing room with Meteora and Eclipsa. "Star?"

"Shimmer Soap Tentacle Wave!" Star motioned with her hand and the train of Eclipsa's dress wound itself tight around her, squeezing her body tight and trapping her arms.

Seeing her mother in trouble, Meteora's eye's began to glow red, but Star curled her fingers up and released a second spell. "Dreamless sleep."

The young girl collapsed to the floor.

"What's the meaning of this?" Eclipsa yelled.

"Your spell—the Void Piercing Spear—did you use it on Marco?" Star asked.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Eclipsa said turning her head.

"Don't play dumb with me and keep your hands still, I know what conjuring a spell looks like." Star said.

Eclipsa flexed her shoulders and her green hair drooped down into her eyes. She curled her lower-lip over her upper one and blew the tendrils out of her eyes. "I've never used that spell. It has far reaching consequences."

"Well, someone did." Star paced the room. "Use it, I mean. Some of what I remember reading in the book is happening now. No one remembers Marco but me."

"Preposterous, you're marrying Marco," Eclipsa said.

Star dropped to her knees and released the spell. "How do you remember Marco too?"

"How could I forget Marco?" Eclipsa asked between huge, panicked breaths.

"Marco came to visit me before the wedding for some…woohoo time. He vanished before anything happened and now Mom doesn't remember him. Went to his old house and now his parents never lived there. It's like something happened to the whole family. Like they never existed."

Eclipsa moved to scoop up Meteora and move her to the small couch. "You read the Void Piecing Spear. It's not a spell, it's a set of instructions attached to a spell. I called it the most pacifist way to completely obliterate someone. You erase them from time. They cease to be and soon even the memory of them is gone."

"Why does it effect Marco's parents and their house?" Star asked.

"Well because they are what made Marco inevitable. If Rafael gives Angie the old shot twixt wind and water they have a little Marco. The way you save Marco is to undo whatever they did," Eclipsa explained.

Star pushed herself to her feet. "So someone went back and killed them?"

"Not necessarily. The Void Piercing Spear will take you to the desired time, but you have to figure out what it was that they did to assure Marco's erasure. Whatever they did, you can undo it."

"Then you're going to have to send me back," Star said. "And I'm going to need the wand too."

"You're not even sure who you're going back to stop," said Eclipsa.

"I've got a pretty good idea," Star said.

* * *

Star opened the door the fridge, glanced inside, and closed it for what felt like the hundredth time. It wasn't like she could have expected anything to just appear in there. She and Marco hadn't really prepared to be here. They hadn't had the time. Her eyelids were heavy and the sunlight cutting through the blinds seemed to hurt on her skin or eyes or anywhere else that it touched her including her hair.

Marco stumbled down the stairs, pulling his hoodie over his t-shirt. His eyes wandered through the house to find Star.

"Oh hey Marco. I think we need some of that paper Earth money," Star said.

Marco reached down the front of his pants and pulled out a wad of cash. "Six hundred and fifty dollars. It's all we've got."

Star squinted at him, slamming the fridge door shut to move closer to him. "But it's not even in your fancy-pants wallet…"

"Yeah. You're always sneaking the money out of it so I started keeping the cash taped inside my underwear," said Marco.

"Taped to what?" Star pondered her own question as she tapped her index finger against her chin.

Marco ignored her. "Whoa, did you sleep at all?" Marco asked.

Star knew what she looked like: her frazzled blonde hair hung down over her eyes as a feeble attempt to hide the huge bags beneath them. She hadn't bothered with her hairband or even changing out of her night clothes. The grass stains were more apparent on them in the light.

"I'll be fine Marco. We just have to get some caffeine in me."

He closed the gap between them, reaching up to touch her cheek. "What's going on?" He asked.

"Please, don't touch me," Star said weakly.

He pulled his hand away. "If you're not okay, you can always talk to me."

"It won't do us any good discussing it here. Not now," Star said.

"Okay then."

She held the wand up. "I've got to get used to using this thing again," she muttered. Star closed her eyes and touched the wand to her chest. Her clothes changed: she was wearing a teal dress with a little spider on the front and some flat-bottomed Maryjanes. She moved the wand up to her hair to put it up in a ponytail with a red ribbon.

Star stashed the wand. "How do I look?"

"Uh, great as always—always great," Marco stuttered.

Despite everything at stake and everything that was going on, Star laughed at this. A memory that always stuck out to her was something that Jackie said to Marco when they were all at Britta's Tacos. He always could make you laugh. That was what really made Marco special. What if one day she couldn't remember the little details of her life with Marco like that?

What if she couldn't remember Marco.

"I think we should hit up Starbucks and then we head over to Echo Creek Academy—do some recon," Marco said.

"Sounds like a plan."

They made their way down the streets of Echo Creek, following less worn versions of the roads they knew. It was somehow cooler outside in a way that felt significant and the air had a yellowish haze to it that hung low over everything.

"There's another casualty," Marco said pointing to the grass mound that would, in their time, be a vacant parking lot where a taco truck was perpetually parked.

"Look Marco, that electric sign!" Star grabbed him by the shoulder and aimed his arm up toward the bank marquee.

"1997," Marco said. "We're in 1997?"

"I know! What's that even mean? Should we dress differently? Maybe I could fashion some leather armor with spikes on it," Star said.

"This isn't a Mad Max movie," Marco said. "But we have to be careful. We could reference something that completely screws the timeline," Marco said. "We could do something that makes us never be born…"

"That must be what happened to you," Star said. "Someone did something that erased you. The Void Piercing Spear spell seems just takes you to a desired time, which means someone else using it to get rid of you for…reasons."

"A spell? Where would they get it from?" Marco asked.

"There are a lot of place to get a spell. Eclipsa did it to get us here, but there could be another magic user. They might even be someone that the two of us know yet…" Star said.

Marco grabbed the sides of his head, pulling at his head. "This is freaking me out, Star. All of this time travel stuff is too much."

"Let's find a gas station and get a breakfast burrito in you. Maybe they'll have some coffee for me," Star said rubbing his shoulder.


	3. Two Princesses

Humidity was different on Earth. Star had made peace with that fact when she first came to live with the Diaz family, but the change was more drastic in 1997. Before having Eclipsa send her back she had packed some things. She dressed in her pink overalls and a baby blue shirt with a little yellow unicorn head peeking up in the little scoop necked part between the straps of the overalls.

Other things she managed to tuck into her bag included the wand, Marco's scissors, and a longbow. The bag was small on the outside, but the inside was massive. Whatever the user reached in thinking to grab would come to them, but they could only get hold of one item at a time.

She strolled down the streets of Echo Creek keeping her eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary, anything that might have been magical and not in the norm. Only problem was that she had never lived in the 1990s, let alone on Earth in them. Normal to her might be completely different.

A loud scream broke the quiet monotony of the town. Star whipped her head around, looking for the source of the noise. There was a high wooden fence to her right. She didn't see anyone who might spot her on this block, so she made a fist and used a spell to propel herself up over the fence. Star landed in a crouch on the other side and glanced up to see a family gathered around a huge above ground pool that. A red faced little girl in the pool was staring at her over the edge of the blue plastic the held the water in.

That had to be the source of the scream.

"Sorry," Star said waving her and nonchalantly. "I thought that I heard someone in danger of something dangerous or, you magical…" her words trailed off.

Not waiting to see the full force of their reaction, she bolted across the dried brown grass of the yard and made her way between the house and fence to scramble over the fence again to land on a different block than the one she had been on. She knew this street, but these houses weren't here in the future. A huge, modern-looking apartment complex building took up this whole street.

It was going to be harder for her the navigate the city than she had first thought. So much had changed.

But this street led straight to the front driveway of Echo Creek Academy. She headed in that direction, trying to leave the area of the family pool party behind.

* * *

It seemed better for Marco now that he had gotten his hands on some food. Star could feel that he was calmer—she had been around him for so long at this point that was easily able to gleam that much off of him. His shoulders had slumped back into their usual position and he wasn't saying much except for the muffled comments he managed around the doughy tortilla of his burrito.

"We take a right up here and the school shouldn't be far," Marco said as he munched away at the food.

"Things changed too much," Star said. "It's hard to tell where we are. It's like every once in a while I'll see something that I remember, but I almost second guess it because other things aren't there."

"Helps to know the street names," Marco said. "Also going in and out of Hekapoo's dimension kinda prepares you for things changing over centuries. That place was a pain to get around."

Star shrugged. "At least we didn't have to ask them what flavor of spiders they had at the gas station."

A boxy black car rushed past and Star glanced to it. Even the cars had changed a lot in twenty years: the bodies of the vehicles seemed so square and uniform. They also seemed louder somehow, as if that were possible.

She collided with Marco from behind, kicking something squishy away. Star looked to the sidewalk to see Marco's burrito rolling away from her foot.

"Do you see that?"

"What?"

Marco pointed, his other hand still partially open from where he was holding the burrito. "Her."

A tall woman in overalls walked up the sidewalk just across the street from them. She had hair that stopped at her mid-back. The woman was still in motion and it was hard for Star to get a look at her face, but her posture and movement said she was older than them and there was something determined in her gait.

Then her fringes bounced just right and Star could see her cheeks…

She was Mewman. The heart shaped marks half concealed by her buttercup hair gave her away. That was it, she must have been the target. This was the woman who had erased Marco.

Without another thought Star darted into the street. A car screeched to a stop and she leaped onto the hood running across it so that the metal shook with a thunderous sound the other woman. She checked for any approaching obstructions and raised her wand.

"Mega Narwhal Blast!" Star shouted loosing stream of the horned sea creatures from her the head of her wand.

The woman turned had turned when the commotion in the street started, her blue eyes flashing shock in Star's direction a split second before the spell slammed into her knocking her through a wooden barrier plaster with caution and keep out signs.

"Star! Wait." Marco yelled as Star dove through the hole left in the barrier with her wand held at the ready.

The woman rolled over to push herself up onto her hands and knees. She shook her head, apparently in a daze. Star stood about fifteen feet away from her in the empty lot surrounded on all sides by tall buildings made of stained brick. Trash was caught in the wispy grass that lined the perimeter of the lot where it was too time consuming to cut. Star stepped over the shattered wood, making her way for her opponent.

"Ohhhhh—kay," said the other woman as she pushed herself up from the ground and dusted the grass off of her reddened knees. "Guess we're doing this whole thing now."

"I know you're not from here. Tell me why you're on Earth." Star yelled.

"Oh, I'll tell you what you want to know, but you're going to get a free lesson first," the woman said. She dropped into a low crouch, rushing Star in a path that arced and zagged to make it harder to predict. "Rainbow Fist Warnicorn Upper Cut!" The woman screamed.

"Warni-OOF?!" A fist to the stomach pounded the words out of Star before she could complete her thought.

A barrage of rainbow-wreathed punches worked their way up her chest until a final one to the chin sent her flying up into the air. She could hear them rushing toward her a moment before the first warnicorn kick caught her in the back and sent flying higher. Then another kick boosted her up further. And another. Star wasn't unaccustomed to punishment, but it was so disorienting and fast that she didn't know which way she was falling or where the woman was in relative to her. There was no time to mount a counter attack.

And the blonde woman wasn't done. She appeared in midair before Star, using magic in her hands to propel her upward. With her hands clasped tight together and still shrouded in a rainbow colored haze, she hammered Star toward the ground. A wretched gasp escaped Star's mouth as the wind was knocked from her body and she rocketed downward.

Then she landed on something soft and familiar. Cloudy?

The villainous woman landed in a low crouch in front of her. "I didn't prepare for this, but it does put a smile on my face to know I can kick my own butt," she folded her arms and smirked. "You needed some sense slapped into you some of the time," she said.

"Wha?" Star managed. Her body ached, her heart pounded so hard that she could hear the blood coursing through her veins.

"Star? What happened here?" Marco clambered into the lot through the hole in the barrier. When he saw the state Star was in he immediately stepped into a fighting stance.

The other woman froze. "Marco?"

"You're another Star?" His arms sank slowly, until they were limp at his sides. "You're older…"

"Look out Marco…" Star could barely get the words out from where she was laying on Cloudy.

The older Star rushed Marco and, as if out of spite of what Star expected, pulled him into a tight embrace. How had the Star not noticed that this was _her_.

"Okay, that's to tight—hey." Marco wiggled free and rushed to his Star's side, scooping her up off Cloudy.

"Glad to see you haven't vanished. It means there's still time," said the older Star.

"Why did you do this to…you?" Marco asked.

"She hit me first," older Star said as she fished around in the bag at her side and pulled out a familiar looking wand: Star's wand. It seemed to have changed. The little red horns on the top were gone and the wings were more ornate. She scratched the back of her head with the wand, her turning a deep shade of red. "Oh yeah, Marco, you were always a cutie."

"I don't get it. How are you here?" Asked Marco.

"You must vanished from all time, not just our own," Star said stirring in his arms said. She got onto her feet, pushing Marco's hand away to stand on her own. "She must have used the same spell to come back here and save you."

"She's right," the older Star started. "I'm her at twenty-three." She tapped one of the wings jutting out of the side of the wand on young Star's nose. A orb of light formed in front of Star's face and then began to circle her rapidly. Warmth washed over her whole body dulling the pain and taking with it the wounds she had sustained in their brief scuffle.

"Thank you—I think," Star said glancing up at her future self.

"You're welcome. I've got to be honest, I'm glad to see you. This will be a lot easier with three of us instead of one," future Star said.

"We still don't know what we're looking for," Marco replied.

"I have some ideas. We should really get somewhere that's not a dirty old field so that we can talk," said the older Star.

* * *

Marco watched the future version of his best friend devour the massive plate filled with diner nachos all by herself. It had been meant for all of them, but Star didn't feel much like eating it seemed and he already had.

Parts of this different version of Star were still too similar. She couldn't be the dainty lady type that being a princess for so long should have required of her. Bits of food somehow ended up in her hair and it wasn't unlike her to have one hand shoveling a pile of chips and toppings into her mouth the other hand waited in a back-and-forth queue with more.

Marco would have to be blind not to notice the things about her that had changed. She wasn't wearing any kind of hairband; her hair looked shinier and more wavy. And really all of her just a grown woman. It wasn't like he'd had a reason to consider how a future Star Butterfly would look.

Star was different now, his Star, he meant. Seeing her in real time with an older version of herself only made it apparent how much she had changed. She'd become taller than when they met and had developed a body shape that he would have called attractive. It was the same thing that had drawn him to Jackie before he knew anything about her, did he have a type?

He shouldn't think of his best friend this way and he really shouldn't imagine kissing her or other things. It felt wrong, like it a betrayal of Star somehow. Did he like her for who she was or was that just enhanced by the way she looked?

After seeing the end result of what Star would become he wondered if there was a difference. Star was attractive, but future Star was objectively hot.

"Look, I should probably keep the details of our futures kind of hazy," said the Star directly across from them, wiggling her queso-coated fingers as she spoke the word hazy. I can't have one of you fetuses doing something to mess up my pretty-dope life!" She said in a sing song voice.

She did seem a little mean though.

"Can you keep it down, we don't even know who came back here to mess things up," Star said.

"Oh, I do. I can't tell you because if I tell you then you'll know a detail about the future," older Star chided her.

"Then how are we supposed to fight back?" Asked Star.

"You don't. They're out of your league. I mopped the floor with you and they give me trouble."

"You've got seven years on me, you could at least give us some pointers," the younger of the two said.

"I am pretty awesome. That's the only pointer you need." The older Star rested her chin atop her linked fingers, her hands forming a tiny makeshift hammock. Marco noticed something he really wished he hadn't. On her the third finger of her left hand was a golden ring with a small line of jewels inlaid along part of its length.

He stared at it far too intently, missing anything else going on around him to the point that he didn't know what the Stars were discussing until the older one called out to him after several moments. "Mewni to Marco, what's wrong?"

"Huh?"

"Oh, yeah, you noticed?" The older Star said. "I can't easily take it off because I've gained a bit of weight and when I do I lost it anyway," she giggled and a little snort came out. That was so Star. "Look, I wouldn't worry about who it's from."

"You're married?" Younger Star asked, seemingly noticing what the focus was on.

"Engaged."

"Oh." Marco felt Star's body tense up next to him in the seat as she said this, her arms dropped from the table and folded across her lap. She was suddenly very interested in what was going on in her soda glass.

Future Star let out a sigh. "Eh, it's kind of inevitable: I'm engaged to Marco. In fact, today—well today in my time—was supposed to be the big day," her blue eyes looked up and to the right as if she were reliving a plethora of memories they had yet to experience.

"That's just irresponsible. You could have caused another problem like the one we're here to prevent!" Star threw her hands up. "I'm going to wait outside, Marco—please."

"Sit down or I'll make you sit down," the older Star said in a stern tone. "You're not mad I told you the future. You're upset you don't get to exercise your precious free will," she said the last two words in a baby voice.

Star stared at her older self, her body hanging halfway through the gesture of asking Marco to move.

"You've been lying to yourself about Marco forever. You try to be the perfect ideal of what you think you should be: you love babies despite claiming you have no interest in them. You miss being a princess. You loooove having your hair pulled, that's s freebie for you Marco…" she snapped her fingers and pointed to Marco.

"More importantly," she continued, "you both would do yourselves some favors by just giving the whole Starco thing a chance. This constant 'will-they-won't-they' isn't good for your other relationships. I'm not even revealing anything you don't really know, I'm telling you to be honest with yourselves," she said.

Future Star pushed another pile of chips in her mouth, seemingly to make up for lost time.

Marco froze. Star and Tom hadn't been a thing months. Neither of them brought up the possibility after the whole Blood Moon thing. He had talked to his mom without mentioning Star by name, though she probably already knew, and she said timing mattered, but it mattered less than being sincere. Timing was always their problem. Marco's current situation was the epitome of not enough time. Probably best to focus their attention there.

"What do you mean by 'Starco'?" Asked young Star when some of the tension had abated.

Future Star giggled. "It's what I call Marco and I. It's our little couple name."

"Why?" Star asked.

"Because the alternative was Matar and that sounds way too unnatural," future Star explained.

"Ladies, can we get back to figuring out what causes me to cease existing, please?" Marco said.

"Right. So the person who I am ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent sure used the spell to come back here stole it from Eclipsa. The Void Piercing Spear is from her chapter, but she never used it because removing someone from time could have some unwanted side effects."

"What kind of side effects?" Asked Star.

"Well, possible total event collapse culminating in all of time existing at a single point before sinking in on itself endlessly and ending the universe," the future version of Star rattled all of this off before taking a breath and drinking her tea. "Relax, we've faced worse, well, I have. You haven't yet. This is doable, trust me."

"Nothing about what you just said makes me think I should relax, Star," Marco said. "Why would someone steal a spell to do that?"

"Kind of hard to explain, part of it is just a personal vendetta against me, but they're also against the idea of a free Mewni for all beings who live there. I might have said too much," older Star explained.

"Anything else you care to tell us—in case we run into them alone?" Asked Star.

"The other person has a wand, so if you do come across them get out away. Put as much distance between them and you as you can." Future scooped some toppings onto a group of barren chips before carrying on.

"Im not asking you to sit this out. You're both fit in at Echo Creek Academy better than I ever could. Stopping who did this is important, but we need to make sure things with Marco's parents work out more."

Marco shrugged. "Won't me interacting with them mess up space time or something? Like the whole Earth will just pop?"

"Probably not, I mean, I don't think so," future Star said. "We could ask Father Time if you really want to know, but I'd prefer not to go through that whole thing."

"So we go to the school and what, pretend to be nineties kids to fit in?" Asked Star.

Older Star nodded. "I'll be your savvy older sister and you and Marco are…I haven't figured it out yet. Then Marco you get Rafael and baby me gets Angie."

"We don't know what they're supposed to be doing, though," Marco said.

"I've heard you tell Angie that you've heard the story all of the time: Rafael moved from Jalisco when he was younger. He was nervous about his English and people picked on him. She stopped him from being bullied and they kind of went from there. I figure we just have to get them in position," future Star explained.

Okay, yeah. Marco half remembered hearing this. The Homecoming Dance was where they first kissed, so they needed to figure out when that was. His eyes moved across the table as he heard a small crack noise; the future version of Star was stretching and the way she was bending her back was pressing her chest against her shirt and the front of her overalls. For a moment he wasn't sure if he could be around two of them, especially with the bit about the preordained relationship between him and Star lingering in the air.

He glanced to his Star and she was sitting silently, her hands still folded together and her teeth clearly clenched behind her lips just to make sure that she didn't say anything. Marco knew this look. He'd caused it before.

"Do you guys need anything else?" The waitress had returned, she was an older woman with rust colored hair up in a tight bun. This diner was still there in the future and Marco was pretty sure that the waitress was too.

"Oh no, I think we're fine," the older Star said.

"Alright, thank you for dining with us. Here's the check, there's no hurry," she said placing the folded receipt on the table before leaving.

Future Star touched it, some of the queso on her fingers coming off onto the back of the heat contact paper. "You got this, right Marco?"

"Some things never change," Marco said pulling out his wad of cash.

* * *

Echo Creek Academy hadn't changed much from the nineties. The trophy case, which was visible from the Principal's office, was a little more barren as some of the more recent editions hadn't actually happened yet, but it was hard to even concentrate on it because the hallways were packed with movement. They had arrived during one of the school's two lunch shifts. Students and faculty moved to different club rooms or the courtyard or just into the cafeteria. The sound was muffled through the glass walls of the front office of the school where the three of them sat.

Both versions of Star had undergone the smallest of makeovers, using a technique similar to the one that the older version of Meteora had used to hide the marks on their cheeks. Earthers tended not to notice it, but there was no point in putting their mission or the future at risk.

The older version of Star did most of the talking, but that was partially because she had already started to wear on Star after just a little over an hour and a half of interaction. "Our parents just haven't had time to catch up yet, but I really wanted to make sure I had time to get my sister and our…adopted brother into school here," said the Future Star.

A skinnier Principal Skeeves sat behind his desk with a small bowl of ice cream in front of him. He forced a smile before answering. "We usually require some paperwork and a bit of time with the children to allow new students…but you said that your parents will be making a sizable donation?"

"Yeah, once they're back from their important doctor trip!" The older Star said, a dopey smile working its way over her face.

Skeeves smiled for real now. "We can actually go ahead and get the two of you to do a tour right now if you'd like…I'm sorry I didn't catch your names."

"Marco…Villagomez."

"Starla…"

"Very good. I'll go ahead and have one of the office aids show them around and you and I can hash out the details Miss Butterfly," Skeeves said as he rose from his seat and moved to his door. He poked his head out and spoke to someone outside. "Yes, could you send one of the aids in to give a couple of new students a tour? Good."

When he returned to his desk a boy followed him from the door. He was tall and lanky with his hair shaved almost completely off on the sides, but there was a wealth curly black hair on the top. He glanced at them as he walked through the office and the older Star stared at him, an awkward expression taking over her face.

"This is Tony," said Skeeves. "He's going to show you around the place," he said with a chuckle as if he had made some joke.

"Oh, no—I um, oh never mind," said future Star.

Star and Marco turned to look at her as they rose from their chairs to follow Tony. "Um what is the matter with you?" Star asked.

"Nothing! I think something brushed against my leg," said future Star. "Probably just a bug!"

Tony nodded to Marco and Star. "Hey what's up," he said extending his hand out to Marco. Both Marco and Star shook his hand. "I'm Tony Thomas."

"Oh, I'm Marco and this is Star…la. Starla," Marco said.

"Cool, just follow me and we'll get you caught up with where everything is," Tony said.

As they left the room the future version of Star looked on confused. It wasn't clear what her issue was, but Star was glad to be away from her. As Tony showed them around it became harder and harder to pretend that they hadn't been here before. When he was bantering with a teacher at one point Marco dropped a bit of a bombshell.

"Star," he whispered, getting close to her ear. She didn't like this, him being close felt different now and she hated that it made her tingle down to her core, she hated that couldn't control herself. "That's Jackie's dad…"

The tingles stopped.

"Who? Tony?" She whispered back.

Marco nodded. "I saw an old version of him in the car one day when he dropped her off at the movies. He's totally Jackie's dad."

"This might have been a bad idea. What if we accidentally cause Jackie not to exist? We haven't even found your—" Star was cut off by someone yelling to Tony.

"Hey Tony!"

"What's up Ange? Lookin' good," Tony said the last part jokingly.

"Thanks!" The voice was almost familiar and Star saw why. Sitting in the back of the class with her hair pulled up into a ponytail and wearing an Awesome Possum cheerleading outfit was Marco's mom. She smiled and the metal braces on her teeth caught the light.

"Mister Thomas, are you quite done interrupting my class?" Asked the teacher.

Marco glanced to Star as they were leaving the room. "Hey-who was that girl who yelled to you?"

"Angie Phalange, why you think she's cute?" Tony asked.

"Y-yeah, I mean I'd like to talk to her and all you know?" Marco was being more awkward than normal.

"She's pretty tight. Basically she's friends with everyone. I don't even know if you can get on Ange's bad side. Haven't seen it yet," Tony said.

A gap in the conversation passed and when it had been just too long for any kind of reply Marco squeezed out a "Cool, man."

"So we're going to finish things off with the cafeteria. It's kind of packed right now, but that's just because the Homecoming Committee is working in there to get things ready," Tony said.

"When is the dance?" Asked Star.

"Like two and a half weeks, I don't know if I'm going to go really," Tony said. "Not my thing."

They made their way through the halls and back to the front entrance area where the older version of Star waited for them. She was decidedly in a rush and kept holding her hand over the sides of her face when she would talk, like she was trying to avoid Tony getting a good look at her.

"You ready to go?" She asked.

"Yeah," Marco said.

"When do you guys start?" Tony asked.

"Tomorrow hopefully," Marco answered. Future Star practically dragged both of them out of the school.

When they were a little ways from the entrance, she was still walking much faster than them. They had to keep breaking into small jogging fits to catch up with her. "What's the matter with you now?" Star asked.

"That guy lived in Marco's old house in the future when I went to check on Angie and Rafael," she said.

"That guy is also Jackie's dad," Marco explained.

"How?"

"Jackie's mixed, I guess her mom is just really blonde and light skinned—"Marco was cut off by future Star.

"No, no, no, I met him in the future; he lived alone. Are her parents divorced?"

"You're the one from the future…" Marco said.

"Empty house, no pictures of anyone up. He sure seemed pretty single," older Star said.

Star came to a dead stop. "What if we mess up more than we help? We might be creating a future where Jackie doesn't exist or Janna or Ferguson or—?" She asked stomping her foot for emphasis

"We just have to make things how they should be." Marco said grasping Star's shoulder.

"But how are we supposed to know exactly what the past needs to be? There's no way we could!" Star yelled.

"If you want out I can send you home. You can wait for time to fall apart or until I fix this," future Star narrowed her eyes at both of them. "I didn't plan on having the help and I don't need the distraction."

Star folded her arms. "You claim to know me so well, with all your fancy future knowledge, but I am _not_ a quitter," Star said.

"Then help me. We'll make sure Jackie's dad ends up where he needs to be. We'll save Marco and, if we're lucky, we might even stop the person who caused this mess," future Star said offering her hand out to her younger self.

Star accepted it. "I can agree to that," Star said.

The older of the two Stars nodded and they shook on it. "Good. I know this is hard, there's no one Star Butterfly distrusts more than herself."

Those words seemed to send ice through Star's veins. Her whole being tensed. She clenched her teeth, it was all that she could do to keep from making any kind of face to let the other her or Marco know that the assessment was correct. But of course this other Star knew—of course she was right about her. At least Marco wouldn't know, right? He wouldn't take the word of a stranger, even if that stranger was, well, her.


	4. Lovefool

The future Diaz Household felt darker. There were no paintings on the walls and the color furniture and appliances were absent; the things that made it feel like a home when Tony Thomas or Angie and Rafael had lived there.

This place was full of memories.

There was spot near the front door where a chunk of paint would be missing in the future. Late one night Star and Marco had slipped into the house after spending a day at the beach with Janna, Tom, and Starfan13. Marco had taken her hands gently, his warm, rough palms encompassing hers and he held her up against the wall next to the still open door and kissed her roughly.

It wasn't like the photo booth or any kiss she had ever experienced up to that point. He lips communicated a want that she hadn't thought possible. The light stubble on his chin left her skin slightly raw, but that didn't matter in the moment.

"I can't live without you, Star Butterfly," he said the words right against her cheek, the sound of them seemed to cause her bones to shudder with a kind of delight that caused the world to fade away. What had prompted this, she didn't know back then and still didn't.

But she felt the same. _I won't live without him. I can't._

Her younger self and the other Marco weren't there yet. They couldn't understand their own feelings. That was the thing. They didn't get what she would do, what she had done to protect Marco. Maybe the other Star was right to be suspicious of her motives. She was selfish; keeping Marco safe was to keep her sane. She didn't know what she would do without him.

"You guys at least made the place livable," Star said to her younger compatriots.

Marco rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, we really couldn't sleep here without beds and stuff…"

"It still feels wrong somehow," said young Star.

"Well, with any luck we won't be here for long," she said.

She pulled the strap of her bag off of her shoulder and unzipped it to go through the supplies she'd brought alone. "Did you bring your scissors?" she asked Marco.

Marco looked the other Star and then shook his head.

"We left in a hurry," the younger Star explained.

Star tossed her Marco's pair of scissors to him. "Those are yours, well to borrow. They're inscribed to you, but it's not the same pair you have now. Hekapoo made these special. Sling them out and say the word 'espada'."

Marco hooked his fingers around through the finger holes in the scissors and looked them over. He slung them out and spoke the word. "Espada." The scissors began to glow and almost immediately the blades extended down and widened into a full length saber wreathed in flames.

"Whoa," Marco and the young Star said in unison.

"If it comes down to it, you might need to use that. But we're still going to try and keep you and her away from the person who did this," she explained. "It'd be best if we didn't, you know, break time or something."

"Yeah, that'd be best," young Star said.

"I need to get some rest. I did a stupid thing and stayed up all night for the wedding. I couldn't sleep." She could see the look of recognition in her younger self's eyes. "I'll take my old room," she said as she snatched her bag up and ascended the stairs in seemingly one motion.

She had to be out of there. She just needed to be alone.

* * *

It was a few more hours before the thoughts bubbled over in Star's head and she had to say something. She and Marco had been coy for too long and it was straining her. They weren't normally like this. They didn't usually have an issue being alone together.

Marco had picked the scissors up again and he was turning them over in his hands, feeling their weight. She plopped down on the floor next to him, crossing her legs and tucking her hands underneath her thighs.

"Hey Marco," she started, trying to find the rest of her words. "Do you think the other me is right?"

"About this plan?" Marco asked. He had a can of Sierra Mist next to him that he took a sip from.

They had stopped at a grocery store on the way home from Echo Creek Academy and grabbed some food. It wouldn't be in their best interest to keep eating out, there were cameras and they might run into someone they would later know.

"About us," Star corrected him. "Are we, you know, inevitable?"

Marco thought about this for a long time, laying the can aside next to the scissors. "Would it be such a bad thing?" He asked.

Star glanced down between her legs, wiggling her fingers beneath her legs and doing anything she could to avoid looking directly at him. "How different from best friends is boyfriend, I mean—I don't know," she said defeated.

"I was never that close to Jackie before. And Kelly…" Marco trailed off.

"Why did you break up with Kelly. I mean, not break up, but why did you stop doing…what you were doing?"

She was looking at him now and suddenly his gaze was very intently focused on the soda can at his side. "It was wrong. Like, it wasn't fair."

"To her?"

"To me."

"Oh," Star said.

"You and Tom were friends before, right? Was that different?" Marco asked.

Star took a deep breath. "Tom was like a whistle-gale—I mean, he was a storm you got sucked up in. The Silver Bell Ball happened and we just were a thing. It was just kind of assumed that I was a princess and he was a prince and that's who I was supposed to be. It was what everyone expected me to be. I don't think I really got to know Tom as a friend or otherwise until after."

She thought of whistle-gales and how they were these massive storms that would assault the oceanside cities back on Mewni, cutting a path of destruction through everything they touched. Those storms had an epicenter, the way that Eclipsa had described this time travel dilemma. She could feel this one threatening to pull them apart just outside the center winds where they were now safe. The epicenter could close in and crush Marco and any hope of them saving him. They weren't promised tomorrow.

"I'm sorry, Marco. This is just hard," she said.

"Hey, don't be. We should get all of this stuff out in the open, right?"

Star reached for her wand where it was sitting on the table just to their side. "Let me try something." She placed the wand between the two of them so that it was balanced on its bulbous head. The hilt of the wand was aimed to the side of both of them. With just the tips of her fingers she gave it a hardy spin so that the staff round and round, wobbling from the unequal weight distribution allotted by its form.

It brushed the tiles, skittering side to side and finally the long end pointed toward her as it rocked to a stop.

"What's it mean?" Marco asked.

Star slipped her hands out from beneath her thighs, rocking forward to catch herself so that she was on all fours with her ankles crossed. She crawled the two small paces toward him and touched her lips to his. Her heart reached a thunderous pace and her arms felt all wiggly, like they might lose control and make her fell face first into his lap.

He caught hold of the sides of her body, his right hand touching her shirt just below the hem of her bra. Marco's mouth parted against hers, his lips exploring hers with an urgency that hadn't been there when they kissed before.

Star lunged into his lap, clutching his red hoodie desperately with a tightly knotted fist and pulling him into her at the same time. Her leg jostled the can of Sierra Mist, though the fate of the drink wasn't immediately clear.

Marco's arms fumbled at her arms and midriff as her hips came to a rest in his lap. Something wet and cold touched her leg. The can had, indeed, fallen over. She couldn't be bothered with that now.

"What are you doing?" Marco asked, his mouth almost against hers. He drank in air, because enveloping her lips in his.

Star couldn't recall a time when their eyes were this close together. The room seemed brighter now, everything in her was hot and limp. "Trying to sit on your lap," she said. Were her words slurred now?

Marco lifted her back to help her sit up, they readjusted so that she was sitting with her legs off to one side. For a long time they were just staring into each others eyes. He reached up and touched her cheek, running his hand up the side of her face so that his fingers combed their way back through her hair.

"What if I mess this up?" Asked Star before Marco kissed her again. "I mean, what was so wrong with Tom…"

"We can figure it out together."

When his face moved toward her the next time she caught his chin. "I'm serious, Marco. I don't want to look at you one day and see someone who hates me," she said.

Star rested her hands on his shoulders, she could still taste and smell him. If she wasn't supposed to do this why did it fit so well? Why was her older self so correct about everything.

Marco lifted one of her hands, threading his fingers through hers. "We just have to be honest with each other. Always. And we need to take is slow, you know?"

Honesty. Star swallowed hard. "What if there isn't time?" They were on borrowed time. Tomorrow she could wake up in an entire history where Marco never existed and she wouldn't even remember him eventually. Maybe it were better if that universe collapsed.

He never replied to her and she instead began to talk again. "I have a confession to make," Star said.

"You can tell me anything. Honesty, remember?"

"Last night I was scared I'd lose you, so I used a spell to watch you sleep. I stayed up most of the night just making sure you were there," she said.

Star expected him to be weirded out or say it was creepy, but he cracked a little smirk. "Star, you can't do that. Even if something were to happen to me this is it, we can't run from time," he said.

"I'd feel more comfortable knowing you were okay," she said.

"But you have to sleep."

"Then sleep with me." The words broke Star's lips and she hardly had time to turn red before she stuttered out her retraction. "Sleep in bed with me. In the bed next to me. I was in the master bedroom and there's a lot of room. Heh, it won't be awkward. You're crazy, Marco…" she brushed a stray tendril of hair so that it was tucked out of the way behind her ear.

Marco kissed her on the forehead. "Are you—is that what you want?" He asked.

Star nodded. "It would make me more comfortable, for sure."

"Then I can do that," he assured her.

* * *

A little strip of space stood between their bodies in the bed with only their intertwined fingers and joined hands to bridge the gap. Marco would open his eyes periodically and look at her face. She was beautiful in a way that he hadn't predicted that she would be, in the few hours since their evening of making out it was as if everything had changed. Everything about her was endearing, every little flinch and odd sound she made breathing in her sleep.

He laid as still as he could so he didn't wake her. She was out cold anyway, a night of nearly no sleep had taken a toll on both the Stars. When Star had suggested sleeping together he had to admit that he had liked the implication, but probably only because that was what he wanted to hear her say. It wasn't like it made any sense for her to go and ask for sex. To his knowledge, she had never had it. He definitely hadn't.

He'd never even been in the vicinity of having sex, but laying next to her watching her chest rise and fall in a steady motion beneath her nightshirt and seeing the smooth curve of her hip under the covers he understood wanting someone. Even though he would have no idea what to do if he got them.

Had the other Marco and Star ever had sex? That was something that they had to have done, right? The thing she had said about the hair pulling was more of a joke or at least he thought so. He had to wonder how you even got there, what had to happen for things to end in sex.

When they were kissing in the living room there was a pressure in his chest and it felt like if it grew anymore his heart and lungs would burst. It felt like the blood rushing through his veins carried something of Star in it, a kind of airy heat that made the world brighter that was so powerful it threatened to destroy him from over exposure.

Sex would be more intense than that. He was sure he couldn't take it.

Star's lips mouthed a word as she stirred. He couldn't make out what she was saying since he couldn't read lips. Her fingers tightened against his as if she were making sure he were still there, still solid. She smiled.

Marco loved watching her just be happy, even in the fleeting moments when the wonder of something caught her off guard. Her expression often reminded him of the unbridled happiness that he saw in Mariposa at times.

He shut his eyes. Tomorrow was going to be a long day, he couldn't watch Star all night. Especially not after telling Star she needed sleep.

* * *

Echo Creek Academy hadn't aged to the point that Star would come to know it. The original possum statue was still outside standing proudly in the front of the building near the drive and everything was just a bit fresher, a bit less worn. Things on Earth, at least the part that she had interacted with, had a tendency to be new. Most of Mewni was built in the distant past.

The halls that Star had walked back home were there when her mother's mother was a baby. Their world had kept a relatively narrow culture and state for most of its existence. The pendulum would swing back and forth in certain types of mindsets, but her world seemed resistant to change. It felt as if Earth didn't have any building standing that had been there for one hundred years.

She couldn't be sure how old the school was, but really looking at it without the pressure of preforming for the principal or dealing with the older version of herself she could see that from Angie and Rafael's time here until her and Marco's things had definitely changed.

Star hadn't seen Marco since they had parted ways that morning. It was important that he find his father, but it was scary because if he vanished during the day there would be no way for her to know probably until some stranger was whispering it to someone else in the halls and she overheard them. The thought terrified her, but it wasn't like her being there could stop it. This was the end of the line, if they messed up here it was over.

"I don't think they're going to let us in there," a familiar voice was speaking just around the corner from where she walked through the hallway. It cut through the white noise of the students rushing to lunch. "You're thinking, like, way too big for this after-party. And too small at the same time. Pancho's Club is, like, crazy Polly Pocket tiny." It was Angie, at least Angie's voice, though she hadn't heard Angie talk about these kinds of things before and she had never heard her mention this 'Polly'.

Another girl was talking with Angie, she had long straight black hair down in a neat braid. Her shirt was white a button up, like she was wearing a uniform, but the school didn't have them. "I just want to make sure that wherever we do this party it's fun, people don't really expect a Homecoming after party to be, you know…big."

"Angie, right?" Star interrupted. "You were the one taking to Tony yesterday?" She asked.

Angie resembled her older self somewhat, but everything about her was slimmer. Her hair had been straightened and then crimped so that there was small evenly distributed waves running down its length. She smiled to Star, a huge genuine smile. Star had seen the kind before from her. "Oh new girl! Hoshi, this is the cute near girl I told you about!" Angie grasped Star at the shoulders, turning her to face the other girl.

"Hmm, she does have the look…" Hoshi leaned in close to study Star. "Do you have any dance experience, new girl?"

"Well—do you mean like ball room dancing or just shaking your money-maker?" Star bent forward, clenching her fists tight and gave her butt a little wiggle out behind her.

Hoshi stared Star down, her dark eyes narrowing and then she turned to Angie. "We can give her a shot and if things don't work out we can always toss her back." Hoshi clutched her books tightly to her chest as she stepped over to Angie's side.

"Don't be so mean," Angie said.

"Umm, hehe, what are we talking about?" Asked Star.

"One of the girls on the squad got injured pretty badly. We need someone to cheer for the Homecoming game. Like, right when I saw you I knew you'd be perfect," Angie said.

"Cheer—oh like cheerleading?" Star remembered her few times interacting in with the cheer squad at Echo Creek in her time. Brittney Wong was the leader of the group then, was Marco's mom leading them here?

Angie chuckled. "Duh, what else could we have meant?" The words Angie said could have been seen as rude, but at the same time coming out of her mouth and the way she said them they weren't. She wrapped an arm around Star's shoulders. "We just need you to stop by for practice tomorrow."

"Are you sure about this?" Star was always wanting to experience new things, but something this high profile in the past might not be the best idea.

"I don't want to pressure you into doing something you're not comfortable with, but it'd really help us out and you'd get to make some new friends. I know you're new here. Just, please, give it some thought, new girl," Angie said.

"Oh it's Star-la. Starla…is my name!" Star fumbled through her words.

Hoshi lifted her book to look down at it and jotted something down with her pen really quick.

"Okay Starla, hope to see you tomorrow," Angie said as she scooped her bag up into her arms and headed down the hall with Hoshi following behind.

Star let out a breath that she hadn't know she was holding. "Well that seemed too easy," she commented to herself.


	5. Spider-Webs

**Author's Note:**_ Sorry for the long delay between this chapter and the last. Without spoiling anything from the last few weeks from Star Vs the Forces of Evil the show took some crazy turns. My original idea was that I could write around what the show was doing while keeping this relatively canon compliant, but that's not going to be possible and I won't compromise the story I set out to tell by trying. The delay has been me figuring out how I wanted to play this. I actually referenced some of the things that happened in the episodes in an earlier draft of this chapter, but took them out. I will say this: **Assume that everything in the show basically continued as it was happening in season 4. Eclipsa is Queen, most of the characters grew from the in the state they were in mid-season 4.** Thanks._

* * *

Marco's optimism for their chances of success became more muddied with doubt as he considered the very real possibility that someone may have done something to his dad. Marco was gone for good; a dead man walking. For the whole day he had searched for his father. He had asked a few students if they knew him and even tried to get a look at the class rosters from one of his teachers while she was distracted. There was no sign of a Rafael Diaz.

That could have been the problem. He and Star were just wasting their efforts, squandering their last days together before…

Someone tapped him on the back. He turned around to see Tony offering out a fist. Marco bumped his fist against Tony's.

"Hey, alright, there he is," Tony said as he drew his fist away and opened his hand to make a little exploding sound as if the impact of their fist bump had caused some chain reaction. "Everything okay, you seem kind of lost?"

Marco rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, you know how things are. First day and all."

"I was born in Echo Creek, but everyone has a first day of school at least once," Tony said.

Marco really hadn't ever been a new student. He had lived in Echo Creek all his life, it's just too bad that his life wouldn't begin for another seven years.

"It's been pretty good. I found all my classes on time," Marco said.

"Then you're already half-way there, right?" Tony quipped. "Listen, that sister of yours…or step sister, how old is she?"

"Star…la. Starla?" Marco tried to catch himself, but it seemed to only make things more awkward.

"No, no. The older one who brought you two up here?" Tony asked.

"She's twenty-three," Marco said. No reason to cover that fact up. It would help to keep all of the lies straight if everything wasn't a lie.

"Damn. She's kind of fine. I guess, there's not much chance she's gonna want to go for a high school senior," Tony said.

Why was he this angry at Tony? It wasn't like Tony was saying anything rude about Star and it wasn't even his Star, but he suddenly didn't want him to talk to either of the Stars anymore. He sighed before speaking anymore. "Sorry, man. I'd tell her you were interested, but she's getting married in a few weeks."

"Huh, figures. Well, good looking out, brother."

"I've got a quick question," Marco said. When Tony turned Marco knew he only had a little bit of time to ask this and he had to phrase the question right unless he wanted to come off as being up to something. "I found this…book. I think it belongs to an older guy. Rafael Diaz? Do you know him?"

"Oh, yeah he's kind of new here. I actually have a class with him."

"Do you think he's still around?" Asked Marco.

Tony scratched the side of his head. "Not sure, he doesn't really speak much. I actually gave him the whole tour of the school like I did for you. I don't think he said more than five words the whole time. His English isn't the best, but if you want to pass the book along to me—"

"I-I'd rather return it myself. Besides, I left it at home. I found it outside of the school yesterday when we were leaving. I'm an idiot. Should have packed it," Marco rattled off his lie, thinking back over it to make sure it made sense.

"You might be able to find him at lunch then."

"I tried today."

"Did you check the back courtyard? Some students eat back there."

"Back courtyard?" Asked Marco. There was no back courtyard.

Tony pointed toward the back of the school. "Yeah, it's right out the doors in the middle of the back of the building. I didn't really run through there on the tour, but you can't miss it."

At some point between now and when Marco started the school must have demolished the back courtyard and added to the space where the buses picked up students, that was the only thing that door led to in the future.

"Thanks man, I'll give it a try tomorrow," Marco said.

"Oh there she is!" Tony shouted as he approached Star. She was coming down the hall with another girl. They were discussing about something lost in the cacophony of the hallway.

"Tony," Star replied as the other girl broke away from her and headed off around the side of Marco and Tony toward the front doors.

Tony offered his fist to Star, the same way that he had for Marco, but instead of bumping his fist she just wrapped her hand around his, giggling awkwardly. He chuckled at this too.

"Hey Starla," Marco managed.

"How's it going, you two? Marco," she dragged his name out before continuing her inquiry, "are you making friends?" Star asked as she rubbed the top of his head with her knuckles.

Marco tensed up, hunching forward as he tried to fight her off. "Cut that out," he said.

"You two don't look all that related," Tony said. His face changed suddenly and it was clear that he hadn't meant to let that slip out.

"We're not," they said in unison.

"I'm adopted, well, sort of. Family friends and uh my parents passed away. Star's took me in!"

"Really sorry to hear that about your parents. I guess it's good you know someone like Starla—or does she prefer Star?" Asked Tony.

"Oh."

Star shoved him from the side. "He calls me that to make me mad! It's Starla. Of course, maybe if you're cool I'll let you call me Star…wait no."

Marco stared over at her, was she flirting with Jackie's dad.

"I'm cool with either, but hey I got to get home," Tony backpedaled toward the door, swinging one arm up to wave. "I'll see you."

"See you," Marco and Star both said.

The moment that he was out of earshot, Star pounded her fist into Marco's shoulder playfully. "You're just going to blow my cover like that?"

"Ah," Marco shouted, surprised. "Your name is two letters different from your actual name. He caught me off guard."

"You better be glad that I'm not even sure why we need the fake names," Star said.

"What if Jackie's dad falls for you and you somehow cause her not to be born?"

Star shrugged. "Face it, without all the magic or the heart cheeks," she pointed to apples of her cheek began to glow subtly for a split second, "I'm not all that interesting. People here aren't going to just latch onto me if I can't be me."

He pressed in closer to her. "Is everything okay?"

Star nodded. "It's probably best we don't do that here," she said pushing him away. "It makes things harder."

She had no idea. "You're right, we don't need things looking all 'Game of Thrones'." Marco said. "It's crazy that no one else here even gets that reference," he said throwing his arms up.

"Well, neither do I," Star said.

* * *

They had come to the past for one thing—to save Marco Diaz. While they walked home she wrestled with the idea of telling him about his mother. Honestly, she was wrestling with a lot of ideas right now. She and Marco had rushed out without speaking that morning; sneaking out of the bedroom without alerting future Star to their awkward arrangement had been difficult enough.

It was hard to tell what kind of changes the seven years difference between them could have caused. The only thing she was sure they agreed on was Marco and being sort of over who they were. A lot of things got said when they were sitting on the floor in the living room last night. Had she really asked Marco to sleep with her? The words felt like they were coming out of someone else's mouth. The words had her voice, but they didn't seem to be hers.

She had been poison, at least that's what things felt like as far as Tom was concerned. Star caused issues for anyone she dared to entertain the idea of dating. Maybe this just wasn't something she was meant to have?

And why was Marco still around?

Why was he so invested in her when he could have found a friend or more elsewhere?

Last night had been awkward to say the least. It was the first time since she and Tom ended that she felt like Marco was into her. Maybe he did a better job hiding it or distracting from it, but it wasn't like Marco ever made a move for her.

"You're quiet," Marco said glancing over at her.

_There's a lot going on over here and if I say what I'm feeling you'd be disgusted with me or worse…_

She ran her hand through her hair, running her fingers down its length and cracked a smile. "This whole Earth-school thing is just more tiring than I remember," Star said.

"Did I keep you up. If you need sleep in my own room tonight I'm fine with it."

"If you want to stay in your own room that's okay, but I—I liked having you in my bed," Star confessed.

Something in her swelled at the thought of Marco curled up next to her in bed. Star wanted to kiss Marco right here. What would his hands would feel like gliding over her skin? Marco couldn't want her the same way. Marco didn't have these thoughts, right? To him she was weird, goofy Star. That's all she was now.

And she was trouble. He was only vanishing from time because of his involvement with her life. Marco was always in danger because of her.

"Why don't we go somewhere fun. Right now?" Marco took hold of her arm and stared right at her face. "We could get something to eat or just find a place to sit?"

"I don't know Marco…" Star asked.

"Too soon? I just figured that you'd want to go on a date to celebrate the potential…" Asked Marco.

"No. It's just…a date?" Star glanced down and then back up into Marco's eyes. He still wanted to date her? "I feel like there's something I should tell you," she said.

Marco let out a small chuckle. "Okay. What is it?"

The wind blew warm and wet, carrying with it the smell of distant rain. Star looked in the direction of the wind was coming from to see a gray overburdened cloud sliding toward them. "Maybe we shouldn't do this now. It's just—I don't think it's a good idea."

"Do what? The date?"

"This. The whole thing."

"I don't understand, I thought—"

"I don't want to distract us from saving you. I'm already the reason you're in danger," Star said. "You were the safe one. That was the first thing they ever said to me."

"Star…"

"And it's not like I don't want to, but I don't want to be responsible for you vanishing," she said. "I'm sorry."

Before she could really think of anything else to say her legs started up and she was running down the sidewalk. Her boots hammered at the pavement as the first large drops of rain hit her arms and head. After a while the only way she could tell her tears from the precipitation was how warm they were.

Over the dull roar of the rain and the sounds of traffic on the street she could hear Marco yelling behind her. Her wasn't even bothering to use the fake name. "Star! Star! Come on!"

She cut through a field that led to a ravine. She knew it was in the general direction of the house, but she also just wanted to be alone. She wanted Marco to go on without her.

The wet grass splashed the water up onto her legs as she moved. There was a mist rising from the ground and the rain got more intense drowning out a lot of the sound around her.

"Star!" Marco's voice barely cut through the sound of the deluge.

Now that she had started running it seemed crazy to stop, it seemed to be admitting some kind of wrong doing. Her clothes sleeves clung to her arms and her dressed bunched up in awkward places. Water was soaking through the fabric and causing her hair to slap against her back in one thick, saturated clump.

She heard the splashes of Marco's footsteps behind her. His heavy breathing somehow cut through the sheet of noise that was the rain. The edge of the ravine was somewhere near her, there was a sidewalk around the perimeter, she remembered.

Star slowed her gait to search for it until she was at a jogging pace. But with each step she felt the squish of wet soil buffered by grass. This was too far. Perhaps this was the wrong field or she had simply misremembered in her panicked state.

Then the tip of her foot hit nothing and she toppled over. Her knee jammed as she fought to catch herself but the incline was steep and there was no way to get traction. It was just grass. In the time before she moved to Echo Creek they must have paved it. The missing sidewalk should have been a dead giveaway. Stupid Star. Emotional, idiotic Star.

She fell hard onto her back causing her teeth to snap. Her lungs struggled to make up for the air lost in the impact. She slid down the slope toward what she hoped was still a flat bottomed space for storm drainage, one that hadn't filled with water recently.

"Star!" Marco set after her, sliding down the same way she had. He must have seen her fall because already his descent looked more managed.

The mud bunched up around her backpack and butt, her dress was caked in the stuff, but she continued to slide for longer than it felt should be possible. Then her leg hit flat ground. It was paved down here. Through the mist and the rain she could make out a bridge in the distance passing over the manmade river. There were some spots where people had spray painted along the ground along with the leavings of small homeless camps.

Marco slid to a stop near her, pushing himself up to his feet and running for her side. "What's the matter with you?" He asked, collapsing to his knees next to her. His muddy fingers grazed her cheek. "Star?"

_What's the matter with you?_He was dying. What kind of question was that? How could he be so stupid and arrogant? Her eyes searched his face and her head buzzed with flashes of white hot emotions that passed so quickly she couldn't process what she had been feeling.

His hands moved down to her shoulders, clothing the upper sleeves through the layer of mud. "Are you hurt? Did something—"

Star snatched him forward by his collar, kissing him as the rain beat down around them. She shouldn't do this. She shouldn't let herself gamble with Marco's future because it felt good. But it felt so good.

Then he was against her. He pressed her against the mud-slicked incline, his hands on either side of her body, walling her in. Her hands were trapped in a tight knot between their chests. Everything was slippery, wet, and cold except for where they touched.

From that everything happened on auto-pilot. Star didn't think about wrapping her legs around him, but Marco was just between her thighs suddenly. He moved his body against hers, rocking her deeper into the mud as they kissed. It didn't matter her hair was probably inches below the ground now or that it was pouring around them. This has to be right. It wouldn't feel like this if it weren't.

The feeling was hard to describe, though despite them both being fully clothed it was there. It was like the first tangy bite of an orange when your mouth swelled to accommodate the citrus, parts of her body she didn't know could be that _expressive_ did something similar.

She wiggled her hand free and grasped for his right wrist, pulling it back to her chest.

"Huh?" Marco said.

"It's okay. It's okay," she whispered.

Marco rubbed his hand over the wet fabric of the dress and they stayed locked in their kissing and embracing and rocking until and touching until Star laughed.

"What?" Marco asked.

"You're just kind of sliding your hand side to side over my boob. It's weird," Star said, her smile wasn't faked or forced now.

He rolled off of her. "It's not like they come with an instructional manual or some kind of diagram."

"I could draw you one," Star said with a giggle. "It won't be to scale…the left one is a little bigger." She tugged her shirt away from her skin. "My left, not yours."

They laughed in unison.

Marco glanced up. "The rain stopped."

"I didn't even notice," she said.

"What happened back there?" Marco asked.

"Can we just…try and let this happen?" Star asked. "I mean, without the threat of you being erased or upsetting the past or destroying reality?"

Marco nodded.

"There's something I want to try. If it's okay with you?" She asked. Her heart was still pounding, she realized now. Marco needed to be back on top of her, but she knew she couldn't ask that.

"I guess, but what is it?" Marco asked.

She climbed to her feet, her legs a little scuffed from the fall and her hair stuck to her back with a plaster of mud. "I'll tell you at home," she said.


	6. For Me This Is Heaven

Star's nails clinked against the side of her mug. With each day she spent in the 1997 this wedding manicure was going to waste. Marco loved the way her nails felt when they were painted and, really, he loved to hold her hand and rub his thumb in her palm. And then he loved the way those same manicured nails felt as they ran playfully rough trails down his chest.

She missed Marco; HER Marco. They had achieved this strange level of intimacy that they'd gotten to where she didn't feel alone, but she didn't feel the burden of being around others.

It had gotten to the point that she wasn't okay left to her own devices. Wild thoughts drifted through her mind. To avoid that she had to get out of dimension, away from Earth and anyone who might question her presence or try to make small talk. She needed to not to be alone, but she didn't want to be bothered either.

Only one place came to mind that fit all of those requirements. It was too bad that the barkeep at this tavern didn't seem to be worry about his earning his tip.

The sound her fingers tapping the glass was barely audible over the voices of the other patrons. No one that Star knew, luckily. It was a few years before her time, but she was sure that Hekapoo came here often and there was really no telling how old she was. She definitely existed before Mom.

"Can I get another beer over here?" Star lifted her mug and let its weight drag it down to the lacquered surface of the bar. The light reflected off just about everything painting the whole room a warm gold color.

"You've been here a while. It looks like you've had enough," the bartender, a single-eyed demon with snakes for hair stepped into view with a bottle opener clutched in his three fingered hand.

Was she slurring her speech or was the sound just too fast for her ears now. She slung the mug from side to side, scrapping it across the bar in an arc in front of her. "You really should just fill it up. I don't have to explain myself."

"No one comes to the Tavern at the End of the Multiverse if they're not running from something or somebody."

Star lifted her glass and peered into it as if she expected it to fill itself. She flipped it upside down to illustrate that nothing was coming out. "Maybe it's both. That's got to be at least worth double what I've had, right?"

"Or maybe talking is what you need? Not more drink…" the bartender said.

"Let the woman—_errrrup_—have a drink, Gonzo," came a gruff voice from nearby. "Gonzo, that was your name right?" A man in a teal shirt stepped in and wrapped his arm around Star's shoulders.

"You know my goddamn name, Rick. You're in here more than me. Sheesh." the snakes atop Gonzo head hissed angrily as he turned to go tend to other customers.

Star shrugged Rick's arm off, batting it away. He had a confidence and energy about him. Though he was older, he didn't seem to be of the age that fit the shock of spiked white hair coming out of his head. Most shockingly of all he was human. A human out here, huh?

"I'm taken," Star said as she wiggled her fingers to show off her engagement ring.

"Oh-ho-ho, hi Taken, I'm Rick. It's nice to meet you," Rick said as he placed his bottle of liquor on the bar next to her, it was unlabeled, but undoubtedly hard. She could smell it from where she sat.

Star spun on her seat, turning her back toward him. "You're drunk."

"It comes with the territory. You're not far be-behind me, Taken," he burped part of the way through the word 'taken'.

"Ew," Star muttered. "Look, I can't do this right now. My fiancé is…missing. I've got to take care of a bratty younger version of myself and I just…I don't know what I'll do with myself if I can't figure all this out."

"Whoa, save it for Doctor Laura," Rick said throwing his hands up in protest. He got to his feet and pulled out a small metal flask. "Y-y-you know, Doctor Laura Schlessinger from that show _The Dr. Laura Program_. Th-th-the syndicated radio program? Man," Rick arched his back, tossing his head back to drink from the flask. "Yeah that show is probably why I don't believe in love. I mean, that and the fact that it's just a chemical reaction meant to trigger responses to outside stimuli to help propagate the species."

"What part of I want to be left alone don't you get?"

Rick slid the bottle he had been drinking from closer to Star. "Take it, Taken. Sounds like you need it more than me," he said.

Not much surprised Star anymore, but she felt genuine shock when Rick pulled out what looked to be a gun made of literal garbage with a bulbous reservoir filled with greenish energy jutting out of the top. He fired it at a blank space in the air causing a glowing portal to open. None of the other patrons seemed the least bit concerned. The air fizzled and popped around the portal as it swirled.

Rick glanced at her before stepping through the portal. It collapsed out of existence a moment later.

* * *

Star stared at the wooden chair she had draped her dress over. Though her eyes had adjusted to the muted light filtering through the bedroom curtains the objects around the bed were mostly silhouettes. Without the Knights of the Wash here to help, she had taken it upon herself to wash her dress in the only thing available, the sink.

She lay in the bed, her face resting on her hands, the smell of soap barely concealing something astringent and primal that still hung over the mattress. The cool air in the room stuck in the sheets, causing them weigh down on her and sink under the edges of her body.

This wasn't that weird. Marco had seen her in a bathing suit and this wasn't much of a difference. Bra and underwear. Lots of women wore them. Angie probably wore them, but that seemed like the wrong thing to think about at a time like this. She still had her socks on, pulled up to where they were just below the knee, the way she liked them. Nothing she was showing was scandalous in and of itself. Of course, context mattered. Only minutes ago she'd held Marco, feeling the warmth of his smooth skin gripped in her hand.

What had Janna called the act? Four Finger Slippy? She had certainly seen why.

The shower droned on through the cracked bathroom door, Marco had been at it a while and she was beginning to wonder if he liked what they had done. Her certainly had a response, one that soiled one of her favorite dresses and managed to get on her hand and arm.

Not that she minded any of that.

When Marco had offered to do something for her, when he had asked to see her (all of her) she had declined. There was something inherently terrifying about the idea of it. Yeah it was thrilling, but it was also her body in a way no-one had ever looked at her before, as an adult woman.

Asking the other Star for advice suddenly came to mind, but she didn't want to open that can of worms.

Being with Marco this way, even if it wasn't the big main event, caused something to stir deep down inside of her. She lay real still, trying to hear clues to how far into his shower he was through the cadence of the water. And when she closed her eyes that caused her to picture him, standing before her with a nebulous void of nothingness stretched out behind him.

He was naked and still wet, she guessed from the shower. It was her fantasy, her rules. His body dripped with water and she moved her hand below the sheets, her fingers ghosting over her thigh until she reached the hem of her underwear. As she wiggled her fingers through the waistband the water stopped in the bathroom.

Quickly, she pulled her hand out, laying them both on top of the sheet. It was several moments before Marco emerged still damp and wearing some soft looking baggy pants and a white shirt.

"You got dressed," Star said before she thought the words through.

Marco laughed. "Yeah." He was folding the towel neatly and placed it on the dresser. His eyes seemed to follow the beam of light from the open bathroom door to the chair where her dress was. "You're not…"

"I've got on underwear," she said, lifting the sheet to show him and then yanking it back down. It felt that if he saw her skin for too long, if her got too good a look at her body that he would know what she had been thinking, what she had been about to do.

Marco crossed the room and stood at the side of the bed looking down at her. "You mind if get into this thing with you or?"

"It's kind of early to go to sleep."

"Maybe we can do something else?"

A voice in her head was screaming yes. Her heart skipped a beat. Still this wasn't the time. She wanted that connection, she wanted to know what it was all of those bards and songs on the Earth radio were really singing about. Star sat up in the bed. "Marco…" Her exposed skin shivered at the feeling of the raw air. It was like she had never been this naked before and she wasn't even nude.

"Marco, you know how I am," she continued as she pulled her golden hair down over her shoulder. Her hands fidgeted with the sheet bunched up around her waist. "I jump right into anything that comes my way and that's the way Star just _does things_, but I don't want to jump into this with you. I don't want to be reckless with you because you're special. I don't care if future me says that it's meant to be, I want our first experience being like that to just happen. And I'm not alright, right now."

"I understand, Star," he said. He lifted the covers and climbed in next to her. His natural heat mixed with the residual warmth from the shower water flooded her senses. She could smell him, stronger than before now. Marco kissed her neck, crawling over her so that his weight pressed her into the bed. "Is this okay?" He asked.

"Yes," Star wrapped her legs around him, pulling him closer and though he was fully dressed the feeling of being like this was causing her body to ring. She let out a soft sound, the kind of noise that she didn't think it possible for her to make.

His lips were at her chin and she shut her eyes against the sensation, feeling like she might slip beneath the world around her and wanting to drown in that sensation. "I love you, Marco," she whispered.

"I love you too, Star." His voice was barely audible, but she could feel the words as his mouth brushed lightly against her face. He moved his hand, running it through her hair. "I don't want you to feel pressure to do things if you aren't comfortable. I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"I know. You don't."

"You just seem to be really against doing…that thing with me," Marco said. "I didn't want it to feel like I was upset by it."

"If we're still calling it 'that thing' it's probably best we wait." Him being on top of her like this was causing her to rethink the whole thing.

Marco nodded. "Yeah. I just want you to feel like I felt when you…"

She cut him off. "…gave you the old four finger slippy?"

"That is the least awesome thing you could call something that…well, awesome."

Star giggled. "You can thank Janna-Banana for that one."

He laughed and they kissed, staying locked together a little longer this timeWhen Star finally felt that it was too much to take, that she might spill over, she moved to sit up. Marco moved to the side, sitting up next to her.

"What's the matter?" Marco asked.

"Nothing, just lay back down," Star said.

Marco did as he was told and she climbed on top of him, straddling him. His hands instinctively found her waist as he stared up into her eyes. "I thought you said…"

"I did," she cut him off. "But we can do other things," Star said shrugging.

"Like what?"

Star took his hand and interlaced her fingers with his, feeling the skin of her palm touching his. It was hard for her to be with Marco like this. They were drawn together. She wanted so much to throw caution to the wind, but he was too important. She unlinked their hands and placed his flat on her stomach, smoothing it out.

She said as she guided his hand down until it was against the inside of her thigh. "I guess we could call it three finger slippy," she said softly.

* * *

Her body buzzed with heat as Star searched in her bigger-on-the-inside purse for her keys. She examined the front door of the Diaz Household with a hint of scrutiny only to realize that she was already inside the house .

"Of course," she started. "That's what the portal was for." She dropped her keys where she was standing and stumbled back through the house. It was late, she assumed that Marco and Star were here and in bed. Or that they were doing whatever. They needed to help save Marco, but it wasn't her place to babysit the two of them. Besides, they were nearly grown.

A hint of movement in the darkness caught her attention and she froze. It took everything in her power to stay still and upright. She fished in her bag for the bottle that Rick had left her, pulling it out and flicking the cork free so that it flew into the black abyss that surrounded them.

"He didn't…" she started, but the younger version of her finished the thought.

"Marco is still here, he's sleeping in the big bedroom," young Star said.

"Huh, how is that going?" Star asked as the realization of what the young her meant washed over her. "Wait, let me guess…" For a moment Star closed her eyes as if thinking back on something just out of reach.

"…you gave him a hand-job because that was the safe option. Then you rebuked him and then you caved for your own sake and let him poke around in your insides…"

"There's no way you could know all that," young Star said. "You were spying on us!"

"Got you!" Star said. She pointed to her temple, the bottle still clutched with her thumb. "I'm you—some of what you do right now is my past. Not sure how it decides, but if I think back really hard I can recall certain things."

Young Star stared at her. "Huh, but you're drunk."

"You'll learn soon enough that drunk Star is a lot of things: loud, horny, another adjective that describes a person who pees on themselves when they laugh, but she's not forgetful," Star said through half closed eyes.

"Where were you all day?" Asked young Star.

"Tavern at the end of the Multiverse. Which means I have been drinking all day and trying to be alone with myself, buuuuuut since you are technically me and we are technically alone with ourselves now I am making you have a drink with me."

"You're not my mom."

"You think Mom would ever give us what I am pretty sure is pirate rum or shoe cleaner," she shook the bottle Rick had given her. "Have a drink with me, please…"

"Okay," young Star said finally.

Star stumbled into the kitchen, flinging cabinets open to find the glasses. In the future, Marco's parents would keep a nice set of short, liquor glasses in this cabinet, but they didn't live here yet. Young Star wouldn't have thought to include that in her spell.

"No matter," Star said. "We'll drink from the bottle, the way our ancestors did!" She raised the bottle into the air as she stomped back into the living room. Before taking a seat she drinks a huge swig from the bottle and passes it to young Star.

"I guess it's just my mouth from the future," said young Star before she took a sip. Her eyes shut tight and she almost sputtered.

Star pointed to her mouth. "If you knew the things this mouth had done," she chuckled so hard that she snorted and snatched the bottle back from her younger self. The next drink she takes is bigger, with her tilting the whole bottle back with her head.

"Is there some reason we're, ugh, doing this?" Young Star was still shivering from her encounter with whatever was in the bottle. "Is this like your way of bonding?"

"Do we need to bond?" Star asked. "We're the same person from tow different times. It's not like we're going to have to be stuck with each other. Hehe."

"I don't know," young Star said. "This isn't normal, even for me. I'm worried about Marco, but I'm also worried about what will happen if Marco and I make it out of this and we're back in our own time. What happens then?"

"Not sure what you mean," Star said.

"What if I mess this up like I did with Tom or what if…what if Marco gets hurt because fo me?" Young Star took the bottle back from herself and took another small swig, coughing as she pulled the bottle away and handed it back. Her expression twisted as she forced herself to swallow.

Star shrugged. "He could die in an accident with a car or something. You being in his life or not is very unlikely to kill him."

"I'm a big risk."

"You're really not," Star said touching her younger self on the shoulder. Her posture was becoming more lax, her body tilted to the side and her hips slightly lifting up from where they were on the couch. In trying to gather her thoughts and sound less drunk the other parts of her were looking more compromised. "I'm going to let go of a tiny secret, but it has to stay between us." Star held her hand up, pinching the air between her pointer finger and thumb to indicate just how small the secret needed to be.

"Having more of him in your life doesn't make things that much wilder—really, you and Marco kind of settle down a bit. You're more happier for it, just trust me."

"What happened to not revealing the future to me? What happened to all of that stuff earlier about the dire consequences?"

"I know a spell that has no name that could fly around this planet destroying all that it touches and never be stopped. Consequences-smonsequences, sometimes we have to just use our better judgement and trust ourselves. And you're me!"

Young Star stared down at the floor. A car passed outside of the house and the yellowish light from the front of it worked its way from one side of the room to the other. When the bottle was offered to her the next time she held her hand up and shook her head. "You can keep the rest, thanks."

"Suit yourself!" Star said.

"You're scared too, huh?" Asked young Star. "You're drinking because of that…"

"Well, it makes it hard to concentrate on any one thing for very long and that works out just fine for me. I want my Marco back. I—this is the longest we've been apart from each other in ages."

Past Star leaned forward, her hands swinging down in front of her knees. "Then we need to make sure that it doesn't last much longer. I'm going to meet with up with Angie tomorrow and hopefully that's my ticket in."

"Has Marco found Rafael?"

"He hasn't found-found him, but I think he knows where to look," said young Star.

Star gulped down the rest of the liquor. "Good, the sooner we fix this, the better."


	7. The Way

The back courtyard that Tony had described was a green stretch of land pressed up against the rear of the school building. There were no windows looking directly at it and some oak trees surrounded by mounts of mulch provided shade. The picnic tables lined up between the trees were darkened with age and had probably been there since the school was built.

Only one student was at the tables; he sat resting his temple against one hand and he used the other to pick over his food. A group of tall, leggy girls, probably seniors were across from him talking in low tones by the dumpster. Marco though he smelled smoke and thought it best not to look and make them think he was thinking of ratting them out.

He didn't want to draw attention.

The lone man at the table looked up. Sure, his father looked much younger. His body was slender in that way that only youth or extreme old age could provide. He looked like a typical teen. His hair was oiled straight back and shaved on the sides and his jeans were baggy and loose with huge pockets dominating the sides of the legs.

It was a lot to take in, your parents in their youth. No matter how much of their past that they revealed; no matter how much they loved to talk about days gone by there would always be missing details and things they left out. A photograph could only tell you so much.

For a long while Marco was frozen there. The bell would ring soon signaling that it was time for them to head inside. Sure, there was tomorrow, but that was one less day they had to solve this whole thing. And they were working with a strict deadline.

"Ra-Rafael?" Marco said. He was walking too fast and when he waved his hand motion was too loose. Even then he couldn't stop it, he wasn't an actor and how was he supposed to behave? He was a teenager from 2019 pretending to be a teenager from the late 90s. It was likely that his father wouldn't notice. He wasn't looking yet.

"Rafael?" He repeated.

The boy who would become his father later looked up from his plate, there was a sort of slow realization that Marco had been actually talking to him. Though he didn't know what to say it seemed. He started to stutter, his words tripping over one another so that nothing that really made sense came out.

"Hey, I'm Marco." Marco suddenly had an awful thought, what if he was still born, but by using this name in front of his future parents he somehow caused them to change it. He was in too deep now.

"Hola, Marco," said Rafael. In reality his English seemed mostly the same. His father didn't grow up in the middle of nowhere, people around him spoke English in little pockets and they had access to television shows from the States. Why had Tony thought that his language was so bad?

"Y-you'll have t-to excuse me," Rafael said.

Marco scratched the back of his head. "Oh no man, no need to apologize." He hadn't thought this far into things, it was all about finding his father, how was he supposed to nudge him toward his mother? "Um, I found this text book. It's a biology text book really and someone said they thought it, uh, belonged to you. Did you know anything about that?"

Rafael touched his hand to the side of his face. "No—no I do not even have biology," he said. "Who said about—"

"Angie Phalange," Marco blurted out. "Oh man, Angie must have the hots for you or something, oh no…" What was he doing? This was a poorly, correction, this was not thought out at all.

For a moment Rafael seemed to recall something. "The cheerleader? You must have the wrong Rafael," he said.

"No, my…sister overheard her saying it. She thinks you're cute and this thing with the book must be, uh, her plan to get to you," Marco said. Why was he still saying this stuff? He needed to run, just get out of the area. He could work with mom and Star could do this, clearly he had already messed it up.

"That's not possible—Angie is everybody's favorite. She wouldn't even take a second look at someone like me," Rafael said. He muttered something Marco was sure was in Spanish, but he couldn't hear it.

"If you stick with me," Marco started. "I'm sure we can figure out some way to respond to this."

"Why would you do this, M-Marco? Why would you help me; you don't know me."

"I was sent here by uhh, universe to make sure that you and Angie get together."

"You mean like the cupids?" Asked Rafael.

"Yeah, just like the cupid," Marco said. "And the only thing I ask is that you—name your first son Marco…" Verbal diarrhea. Why couldn't he stop talking?

Rafael blinked, staring up at Marco for what seemed like several minutes. The hollow tone of the bell ringing over the school's PA system cut through the silence between them. "You don't have to decide now," Marco added.

"Okay, I'll think about it." Rafael gathered his things onto his lunch tray and ducked away from the table to head for the doors of the school. Marco stayed frozen in place to the trio of senior girls had passed.

"Aww man, the Stars are going to kill me," Marco said.

* * *

Star spent the most of her last period of the day thinking about the way Marco's hands felt against her, the steady pressure that had been there just hours ago when he clutched her abdomen to keep her steady with one hand while the other…

When class was out Star was slow to respond to the bell, she had left a note with the office telling Marco to head home without her, but she didn't know if he would get the message. She hadn't been so clear, but she had told him that she would be at cheerleading practice, her first one ever. And that it might run long because there's such a short time to go over the material before the game next week.

This was what Star expected, at least.

As she closed in on the doors to the gym there was music blaring from inside, a guitar with a steady bounce in it's notes and a more synthetic sound backing it up.

The moment that I step outside

So many reasons for me to run and hide

I can't do the little things I hold dear

'Cause it's those little things that I fear…

The singer's voice seemed to ovulate through the mostly empty gym. Star spotted Hoshi first, she was standing next to Angie and began to tap her on the shoulder as Star neared. Hoshi pointed and Angie waved, she said something, but the music drowned her out.

Oh, I'm just a girl, guess I'm some kind of freak

'Cause they all sit and stare with their eyes

Angie made a slicing gesture across her neck and the music stopped. She jogged over to meet Star. "I was a little worried we had scared you off," Angie said.

"Nah, I'd do anything for y—our team. I'd do anything for our team," Star said scratching at the back of her head nervously. This Angie looked too much like her Angie, even with the twenty-two or so years separating the two of them by age. She was wearing a cheerleading uniform with a white sleeveless top with a v-shaped opening in the neck. The school's initials were embroidered across the front of the uniform in the same burnt orange color of the knife pleated skirt.

Angie smiled. "Yeah, that's the kind of school spirit I like to see. You'll fit right in, I'm sure." She wrapped her arm around Star's shoulder and led her back into the center of the gym where the other girls, and one boy, were waiting. "This is the one I was telling you about, Coach Skullnick."

Star's blood ran ice cold. Part of her wanted not to look at Skullnick, she didn't think anyone here she had that much future interaction with would be around besides Angie. She could feel the others in the room staring at her, so she finally glanced up. Miss Skullnick was far more slender, actually curvaceous was the word you used to describe it. She had the same vicious overbite, but it was made far less prominent by her plastered on smile and hair which she wore in a ponytail.

All around she was far less terrifying.

"I'm Starla," Star said.

"Okay Starla. It's nice to meet you," Miss Skullnick said. "Everyone give Starla a big Opossum welcome."

The rest of the squad clapped, getting really into it. There was a few hollers from the bleacher, that was when Star glanced up to see there were a few people watching, probably the siblings or parents of some of the cheerleaders. And then she saw him sitting there peering down at her. He was probably actually just as shocked to see Skully as she had been. Marco was in the bleachers with his backpack laid out across his lap.

No, she needed him not to be here. She needed to not worry about what he was thinking and not be thinking about the only thing that had been running through her mind since the previous night. _We should have just had sex. _Star wondered if that was the issue here. Maybe she was regretting not going all the way with Marco?

What did Marco think? He had been fine with it in the moment, but now he was sticking close to her, watching her. He had to be thinking something.

"Starla? Have you had cheer experience." By the way that Miss Skullnick phrased the question she had asked it at least once before Star heard it. She must have zoned out. Not good.

"No, but I have a background in dance and I'm really good at remember steps and—and phrases," Star said. All those years of looking through a spell book and dancing with the girls would pay off.

"That's something, if you can copy a cheer and the moves we can work with that for now," Skullnick said. She looked Star over carefully. "We have extra uniforms, so we might even have one to fit you."

Star nodded. "Right—I guess I can go check on that in the…"

"Locker room."

"Locker room, right," Star said responding to Skullnick. She shuffled toward the bleachers, slinging her bag off of her shoulders and lifting it up by the strap to hand to Marco. "Can you keep this up there for me?" She asked.

"Sure." He walked down, stepping on the rises of the bleachers and squeezing between two people in order to get to her faster. He took it.

"You can head home if you want," said Star. "I can—I can get by on my own."

Marco didn't seem to take the hint or he was just not listening. He was staring past Star at Angie, it must have been weird to see her like this. More than Skullnick or how different the school looked. Can't draw too much attention to the whole thing. She and Marco were supposed to be family, or at least it seemed like they were. Really they didn't want people to question it, but they looked different. If they kept making awkward goggly eyes at each other it would only make things worse.

The cheerleading squad gathered around Skully for some kind of short discussion, Star walked by them on the way to the locker room and couldn't hear anything they were saying. The locker room was empty and she realized that they hadn't explained where spare uniforms were located.

Star searched around the inside of the room, looking between the rows of bright orange lockers. At some point in the future the school would repaint them to a reddish-orange, one of the school's other colors. Honestly, she liked this orange better.

In the back corner of the room there they were. Seven uniforms of varying sizes in the same style as the one that Angie and the rest of the squad wore. Star leafed through them until one of them looked like the right fit. She unhooked the hanger and held the uniform down in front of her own body. Star pressed her chin down until it was in the neck-hole.

"This should work," she said to no one at all. The idea of having to go out there and deal with both Angie and Skullnick at the same time had her wondering if there were any way that she and Marco could switch. Rafael had to be a lot easier to deal with, right? He had always been a bit more outgoing and weird like Star, that would make things less complicated.

Her shoes were all wrong for this kind of thing, the other girls had these dolled up tennis shoes with bits of sparkly stuff sprouting out of the laces. She guessed that to fit in she would have to do the same. This was all about fitting in while correcting whatever someone had changed. On her way out to the gym there was a picture of the current squad hanging in the hall.

Right near the center was the injured girl, the one that Star was replacing. She was slender and blonde with a plain looking face. Star wondered if this too was someone that she knew in the future, even if they had passed each other on the street. Angie had mentioned the injury, but not how. She began to wonder: had this happened in the original timeline. How close they were to living out what actually happened. Every moment that they stayed here things were further diverted off path.

Star stared at the girl she was a stand-in for. Making a quick circular motion with her index fingers by either side of her head, she muttered a short spell. Her hair was pulled up into pigtails and tied into place with little orange ribbon, just like the other girl in the photo.

"Okay, let's do this."

* * *

Skullnick and his mom had known each other, not just that, but they had worked together closely for god knows how long on a cheerleading squad. His mother had probably had eaten with Skully or even discussed personal stuff. And this was something that she didn't really mention at all. It wasn't often that she talked about high school.

Her time in France or the things she did later with Dad would always be the go-to topics about her past, but pretty much anything before she left for college were seemingly too far back.

Marco watched his mom huddled up with other girls, as a teenager with a huge smile on her face. She seemed happier than he had ever seen her. She was loud and playful, something that he saw very small glimpses of between her and Dad, but this was dialed up to a level that he never imagined.

She and another girl were doing stretches at one point and she squatted near enough to the girl so that only the two of them could hear. Whatever it was that she said, the other girl gave her a playful little punch over it before bursting into laughter. He had only been watching for a bit of time when he realized something: the mannerisms, the energy, the wide eyed optimism—it reminded him of Star.

Was Star like Mom? Had Mom been like her at an earlier time and that's why he was so drawn to her?

Then Star emerged from the girl's locker room in the orange, red, and white cheerleading uniform. The skirts were shorter than they would be in the future and though he had seen them many times before there was something about Star's legs in this context. They seemed to shine in the gym light and the moment that he noticed that he wondered if it would always be like this?

Had he become one of those guys that just sexualizes his best friend all of the time?

Could they even stick with the best friend moniker at this point?

Marco lifted Star's backpack and laid it across his lap, just in case.

Star's his when she walked, the sliver of skin between her top and the skirt—Marco should have gone home to wait for her. He really shouldn't be here to see this, but he didn't want to try and tear himself away now. He watched them go over several routines, Angie taking time with Star to make sure she got the steps down with the timing of the words. They would demonstrate a blip of the actions to Star and then go over them slowly.

For everything that Marco knew about Star, he had forgotten how good a dancer she was. It seemed to translate directly into this. Star followed along perfectly doing each set of steps as they were needed. It wasn't until she had to do several parts in a row that she messed up and even then she looked beautiful doing it.

Marco decided he liked Star dressed like this, he liked to watch her dance and really he just liked to see her happy and laughing and getting along with other people. It couldn't be assumed how she felt about all of this. Star Was being the cautious one now, at least when it came to him.

His mom was speaking now. "We'll try to avoid any stunts for now. Do you know what a Herkie is?" She asked.

Something on the other side of the room caught Marco's eye. There was someone moving along the back wall in a black cloak-like coat. Did no one else see this? Did Star?

It might have been nothing, but it seemed off. It was no raining today or even cool out, the coat made no sense. Marco watched them, taking every few moments to look back at Star and his mother. Mom was doing whatever it was a Herkie was supposed to be, some kind of jump, from what he could tell. Star mimicked his mother's motion over and over. Each time she did it the move was al little closer to perfection.

Marco looked for the figure again. The person was standing near the door boys locker room in the far right hand corner of the gym. The cheerleaders were more over to the left, closer to the girl's locker room—there'd be less chance anyone was looking in that direction. All of the siblings and parents that he saw in the stands ranged from staring down at books or homework to anxiously watching their kid.

Did grandma and grandpa ever come to these things? Marco didn't know his mother's parents. They died before he was born and she didn't talk about them.

"If we progress fast enough with you maybe we can get something in like this…come on, slide the mat over here, please," said Mom.

Some of the cheerleaders moved a huge, plush looking blue mat from the side so that it was centered on the area they were working in. Skullnick, knowing what was about to happen motioned to Star. "Could you step back a little bit, Starla?"

Star backed away as the cheerleaders grouped around the center of the mat to form a sturdy base. Mom stalked to the other end of the mat and stopped to turn and face them. "Are we ready?" She shouted.

"Ready!" The other cheerleaders screamed.

"Okay," Mom yelled before she got a small running start and did some sideways tumbles into a set of hand springs. When she was near enough to them she vaulted back toward the little cup-like base the group had formed to be caught in a cradle made of their linked arms.

Marco's eyes flashed to Star, where she was looking up in awe and then to where the strange figure had been standing, but they were gone.

A bright flash lit the room up near the exit door and when Marco turned to see what the source of it was he caught the tail end of the large, metal door shutting. He heard one a shriek and turned to see the mat, which had been rooted in place slide uncontrollably side to side like it was on oil.

His mother was in the air when two of the girls on one side of the base toppled into the other side. They had just thrown her up high, Marco bolted up just in time to see his Mom careening toward the bare gym floor. In a blur that must have been assisted by magic, Star snatched his Mom out of the air. They both tumbled to the mat, rolling over one another until Star was on bottom, still clutching her tight out of fear it wasn't over.

"Wow—you really saved me," his Mom said.

Star nodded. "Yeah, Angie, that was really weird…"

"Are you girls okay?" Miss Skullnick knelt down beside them. "You could have broken a leg or arm back there," she added.

"It's okay, the new girl got her," one of the squad members said.

There was a smattering of applause from the stands as the few people in attendance stood up to clap for Star. Marco followed along, still eyeing the sides of the room for that person.

As the sound died down, his Mom said something muffled against Star's chest. "Um, Starla—I think it's safe to let go now."

"Right," said Star before climbing to her feet.

* * *

The longer that she stayed in the uniform, the more that she felt out of place. Sure, she liked the little Opossum on the upper left breast of the top and the colors were okay. Marco sure seemed impressed with her in it, but this level of closeness with Angie felt like it was some kind of invasion of privacy. Like reading her journal or something.

After the practice had gone so poorly they went out for pizza on the coach's dime. Star was never one to pass up free food, but Marco had to sit this one out. His tagalong brother routine was becoming a bit much and there was no use in having the rest of the squad or Skullnick asking questions. The pizza place was a buffet with a salad bar and all you could eat pizza.

Star powered her way through as much of it as she could easily before settling down to drink her water and wait for everyone else. Her mind flashed back to the accident that happened in the gym. There was no way that mat moved like that on its own. Even before she fully comprehended what was happening she smelled the magic in the air.

It wasn't so much a smell as it was a kind of tense electricity. It tingled when you breathed it in; it made your hair stand on end. For a second before Angie fell it had been there.

Angie pushed her way in next to Star, nestling her head again Star's neck and shoulder. "How's my guardian angel doing?" She asked before laughing far too much for the joke she had made.

"I'm a little full, you know…"

"Hey, quick question, since our sesh this afternoon ended in such craptastic fashion." Angie outside of cheer practice had an entirely different person, it seemed. Way more affectionate for sure. "How would you like to come to my house tomorrow night with the rest of the girls so we can get some practice in? We'll do a sleepover, it'll be awesome."

"Yeah, I'd like that." It made sense too, if someone had used magic to try and hurt Angie that could be their next move. Maybe Star should stay close to Angie to keep them from being successful.


End file.
